vtmm 


3  535" 
3   1822  01387  0621 


-ssr 


THE  SILENT  BULLET 


A  well-directed  blow  shattered  the  mechanism  of 
the  delicate  wheel.     (Page  387) 


THE  CRAIG  KENNEDY  5ERIE5 


THE 

SILENT  BULLET 


&T' 

ARTHUR  EREEVE 

FRONTISPIECE  BY 
WILL  FOSTER 


HARPER  $  BROTHERS- PUBLISHERS 

'NEW    YORK     AND    UOMDON' 


SILENT  BULLET 


Copyright.  1910,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGB 

CBAIO  KENNEDY'S  THEORIES 1 

I    THE  SILENT  BULLET 5 

II    THE  SCIENTIFIC  CRACKSMAN 34 

III  THE  BACTERIOLOGICAL  DETECTIVE 85 

IV  THE  DEADLY  TUBE 93 

V    THE  SEISMOGRAPH  ADVENTURE 122 

VI    THE  DIAMOND  MAKER 167 

VII    THE  AZURE  RING 188 

VIII    "SPONTANEOUS  COMBUSTION" 221 

IX    THE  TERROR  IN  THE  AIR 254 

X    THE  BLACK  HAND 286 

XI    THE   ARTIFICIAL   PARADISE 319 

XII    THE  STEEL  DOOB .355 


THE  SILENT  BULLET 


CRAIG  KENNEDY'S  THEORIES 

"It  has  always  seemed  strange  to  me  that  no 
one  has  ever  endowed  a  professorship  in  criminal 
science  in  any  of  our  large  universities. ft 

Craig  Kennedy  laid  down  his  evening  paper 
and  filled  his  pipe  with  my  tobacco.  In  college 
we  had  roomed  together,  had  shared  everything, 
even  poverty,  and  now  that  Craig  was  a  professor 
of  chemistry  and  I  was  on  the  staff  of  the  Star, 
we  had  continued  the  arrangement.  Prosperity 
found  us  in  a  rather  neat  bachelor  apartment  on 
the  Heights,  not  far  from  the  University. 

"Why  should  there  be  a  chair  in  criminal  sci- 
ence? "  I  remarked  argument atively,  settling 
back  in  my  chair.  "I've  done  my  turn  at  police 
headquarters  reporting,  and  I  can  tell  you,  Craig, 
itfs  no  place  for  a  college  professor.  Crime  is 
just  crime.  And  as  for  dealing  with  it,  the  good 
detective  is  born  and  bred  to  it.  College  pro* 
fessors  for  the  sociology  of  the  thing,  yes;  for  the 
detection  of  it,  give  me  a  Byrnes." 

"  On  the  contrary,"  replied  Kennedy,  his  clean- 
cut  features  betraying  an  earnestness  which  I 
knew  indicated  that  he  was  leading  up  to  some- 
thing important,  "there  is  a  distinct  place  for 
science  in  the  detection  of  crime.  On  the  Con- 


2  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

tinent  they  are  far  in  advance  of  us  in  that  re- 
spect. We  are  mere  children  beside  a  dozen 
crime-specialists  in  Paris,  whom  I  could  name." 

"Yes,  but  where  does  the  college  professor 
come  in?"  I  asked,  rather  doubtfully. 

"You  must  remember,  Walter,"  he  pursued, 
warming  up  to  his  subject,  "that  it's  only  within 
the  last  ten  years  or  so  that  we  have  had  the 
really  practical  college  professor  who  could  do 
it.  The  silk-stockinged  variety  is  out  of  date 
now.  To-day  it  is  the  college  professor  who  is 
the  third  arbitrator  in  labour  disputes,  who  re- 
forms our  currency,  who  heads  our  tariff  com- 
missions, and  conserves  our  farms  and  forests. 
We  have  professors  of  everything — why  not  pro- 
fessors of  crime?" 

Still,  as  I  shook  my  head  dubiously,  he  hurried 
on  to  clinch  his  point.  "Colleges  have  gone  a 
long  way  from  the  old  ideal  of  pure  culture. 
They  have  got  down  to  solving  the  hard  facts  of 
life — pretty  nearly  all,  except  one.  They  still 
treat  crime  in  the  old  way,  study  its  statistics 
and  pore  over  its  causes  and  the  theories  of  how  it 
can  be  prevented.  But  as  for  running  the  crimi- 
nal himself  down,  scientifically,  relentlessly — 
bah!  we  haven't  made  an  inch  of  progress  since 
the  hammer  and  tongs  method  of  your  Byrnes." 

"Doubtless  you  will  write  a  thesis  on  this  most 
interesting  subject,"  I  suggested,  "and  let  it  go 
at  that." 


CRAIG   KENNEDY'S   THEORIES         3 

"No,  I  am  serious/'  he  replied,  determined  for 
some  reason  or  other  to  make  a  convert  of  me. 
"I  mean  exactly  what  I  say.  I  am  going  to  ap- 
ply science  to  the  detection  of  crime,  the  same 
sort  of  methods  by  which  you  trace  out  the  pres- 
ence of  a  chemical,  or  run  an  unknown  germ  to 
earth.  And  before  I  have  gone  far,  I  am  going 
to  enlist  Walter  Jameson  as  an  aide.  I  think  I 
shall  need  you  in  my  business." 

"How  do  I  come  in?" 

"Well,  for  one  thing,  you  will  get  a  scoop,  a 
beat, — whatever  you  call  it  in  that  newspaper 
jargon  of  yours." 

I  smiled  in  a  sceptical  way,  such  as  newspaper- 
men are  wont  to  affect  toward  a  thing  until  it  is 
done— after  which  we  make  a  wild  scramble  to 
exploit  it. 

Nothing  more  on  the  subject  passed  between 
us  for  several  days. 


THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"  DETECTIVES  in  fiction  nearly  always  make  a 
great  mistake,'*  said  Kennedy  one  evening  after 
our  first  conversation  on  crime  and  science. 
"They  almost  invariably  antagonise  the  regular 
detective  force.  Now  in  real  life  that's  impos- 
sible—it's  fatal." 

"Yes,"  I  agreed,  looking  up  from  reading  an 
account  of  the  failure  of  a  large  Wall  Street 
brokerage  house,  Kerr  Parker  &  Co.,  and  the  pe- 
culiar suicide  of  Kerr  Parker.  "Yes,  it's  im- 
possible, just  as  it  is  impossible  for  the  regular 
detectives  to  antagonise  the  newspapers.  Scot- 
land Yard  found  that  out  in  the  Crippen  case." 

"My  idea  of  the  thing,  Jameson,"  continued 
Kennedy,  "is  that  the  professor  of  criminal 
science  ought  to  work  with,  not  against,  the  reg- 
ular detectives.  They're  all  right.  They're  in- 
dispensable, of  course.  Half  the  secret  of  suc- 
cess nowadays  is  organisation.  The  professor 
of  criminal  science  should  be  merely  what  the 
professor  in  a  technical  school  often  is — a  sort 
of  consulting  engineer.  For  instance,  I  believe 
that  organisation  plus  science  would  go  far  to- 

6 


6  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

ward  clearing  up  that  Wall  Street  case  I  see  you 
are  reading." 

I  expressed  some  doubt  as  to  whether  the  reg- 
ular police  were  enlightened  enough  to  take  that 
view  of  it. 

"Some  of  them  are,"  he  replied.  "Yesterday 
the  chief  of  police  in  a  Western  city  sent  a  man 
East  to  see  me  about  the  Price  murder — you 
know  the  case!  ' 

Indeed  I  did.  A  wealthy  banker  of  the  town 
had  been  murdered  on  the  road  to  the  golf  club, 
no  one  knew  why  or  by  whom.  Every  clue  had 
proved  fruitless,  and  the  list  of  suspects  was  it- 
self so  long  and  so  impossible  as  to  seem  most 
discouraging. 

"He  sent  me  a  piece  of  a  torn  handkerchief 
with  a  deep  blood-stain  on  it,"  pursued  Kennedy. 
"He  said  it  clearly  didn't  belong  to  the  murdered 
man,  that  it  indicated  that  the  murderer  had 
himself  been  wounded  in  the  tussle,  but  as  yet  it 
had  proved  utterly  valueless  as  a  clue.  Would 
I  see  what  I  could  make  of  it! 

"After  his  man  had  told  me  the  story  I  had  a 
feeling  that  the  murder  was  committed  by  either 
a  Sicilian  labourer  on  the  links  or  a  negro  waiter 
at  the  club.  Well,  to  make  a  short  story  shorter, 
I  decided  to  test  the  blood-stain.  Probably  you 
didn't  know  it,  but  the  Carnegie  Institution  has 
just  published  a  minute,  careful,  and  dry  study 
of  the  blood  of  human  beings  and  of  animals. 


THE    SILENT   BULLET  7 

In  fact,  they  have  been  able  to  reclassify  the  whole 
animal  kingdom  on  this  basis,  and  have  made 
some  most  surprising  additions  to  our  knowl- 
edge of  evolution.  Now  I  don't  propose  to  bore 
you  with  the  details  of  the  tests,  but  one  of  the 
things  they  showed  was  that  the  blood  of  a  cer- 
tain branch  of  the  human  race  gives  a  reaction 
much  like  the  blood  of  a  certain  group  of  monkeys, 
the  chimpanzees,  while  the  blood  of  another 
branch  gives  a  reaction  like  that  of  the  gorilla. 
Of  course  there's  lots  more  to  it,  but  this  is  all 
that  need  concern  us  now. 

"I  tried  the  tests.  The  blood  on  the  handker- 
chief conformed  strictly  to  the  latter  test.  Now 
the  gorilla  was,  of  course,  out  of  the  question — 
this  was  no  Rue  Morgue  murder.  Therefore  it 
was  the  negro  waiter." 

"But,"  I  interrupted,  "the  negro  offered  a  per- 
fect alibi  at  the  start,  and — " 

"No  buts,  Walter.  Here's  a  telegram  I  re- 
ceived at  dinner :  'Congratulations.  Confronted 
Jackson  your  evidence  as  wired.  Confessed.'  " 

"Well,  Craig,  I  take  off  my  hat  to  you,"  I  ex- 
claimed. "Next  you'll  be  solving  this  Kerr 
Parker  case  for  sure." 

"I  would  take  a  hand  in  it  if  they'd  let  me,'* 
said  he  simply. 

That  night,  without  saying  anything,  I  saun- 
tered down  to  the  imposing  new  police  building 
amid  the  squalor  of  Center  Street.  They  were 


8  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

very  busy  at  headquarters,  but,  having  once  had 
that  assignment  for  the  Star,  I  had  no  trouble  in 
getting  in.  Inspector  Barney  O'Connor  of  the 
Central  Office  carefully  shifted  a  cigar  from  cor- 
ner to  corner  of  his  mouth  as  I  poured  forth  my 
suggestion  to  him. 

"Well,  Jameson,"  he  said  at  length,  "do  you 
think  this  professor  fellow  is  the  goods  ? ' ' 

I  didn't  mince  matters  in  my  opinion  of  Ken- 
nedy. I  told  him  of  the  Price  case  and  showed 
him  a  copy  of  the  telegram.  That  settled  it. 

"Can  you  bring  him  down  here  to-night ?"  he 
asked  quickly. 

I  reached  for  the  telephone,  found  Craig  in  his 
laboratory  finally,  and  in  less  than  an  hour  he 
was  in  the  office. 

"This  is  a  most  baffling  case,  Professor  Ken- 
nedy, this  case  of  Kerr  Parker, ' '  said  the  inspec- 
tor, launching  at  once  into  his  subject.  "Here  is 
a  broker  heavily  interested  in  Mexican  rubber. 
It  looks  like  a  good  thing — plantations  right  in 
the  same  territory  as  those  of  the  Rubber  Trust. 
Now  in  addition  to  that  he  is  branching  out  into 
coastwise  steamship  lines ;  another  man  associated 
with  him  is  heavily  engaged  in  a  railway  scheme 
from  the  United  States  down  into  Mexico.  Alto- 
gether the  steamships  and  railroads  are  tapping 
rubber,  oil,  copper,  and  I  don't  know  what  other 
regions.  Here  in  New  York  they  have  been 
pyramiding  stocks,  borrowing  money  from  two 


THE   SILENT   BULLET  9 

trust  companies  which  they  control.  It's  a  lovely 
scheme — you've  read  about  it,  I  suppose.  Also 
you've  read  that  it  comes  into  competition  with  a 
certain  group  of  capitalists  whom  we  will  call 
4 the  System.' 

"Well,  this  depression  in  the  market  comes 
along.  At  once  rumours  are  spread  about  the 
weakness  of  the  trust  companies;  runs  start  on 
both  of  them.  The  System, — you  know  them — 
make  a  great  show  of  supporting  the  market.  Yet 
the  runs  continue.  God  knows  whether  they  will 
spread  or  the  trust  companies  stand  up  under  it 
to-morrow  after  what  happened  to-day.  It  was  a 
good  thing  the  market  was  closed  when  it  hap- 
pened. 

"Kerr  Parker  was  surrounded  by  a  group  of 
people  who  were  in  his  schemes  with  him.  They 
are  holding  a  council  of  war  in  the  directors' 
room.  Suddenly  Parker  rises,  staggers  toward 
the  window,  falls,  and  is  dead  before  a  doctor  can 
get  to  him.  Every  effort  is  made  to  keep  the 
thing  quiet.  It  is  given  out  that  he  committed 
suicide.  The  papers  don't  seem  to  accept  the 
suicide  theory,  however.  Neither  do  we.  The 
coroner,  who  is  working  with  us,  has  kept  his 
mouth  shut  so  far,  and  will  say  nothing  till  the  in- 
quest. For,  Professor  Kennedy,  my  first  man  on 
the  spot  found  that — Kerr — Parker — was — mur- 
dered. 

"Now  here  comes  the  amazing  part  of  the  story. 


10  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

The  doors  to  the  offices  on  both  sides  were  open 
at  the  time.  There  were  lots  of  people  in  each 
office.  There  was  the  usual  click  of  typewriters, 
and  the  buzz  of  the  ticker,  and  the  hum  of  conver- 
sation. We  have  any  number  of  witnesses  of  the 
whole  affair,  but  as  far  as  any  of  them  knows  no 
shot  was  fired,  no  smoke  was  seen,  no  noise  was 
heard,  nor  was  any  weapon  found.  Yet  here  on 
my  desk  is  a  thirty-two-calibre  bullet.  The  coro- 
ner's physician  probed  it  out  of  Parker's  neck 
this  afternoon  and  turned  it  over  to  us." 

Kennedy  reached  for  the  bullet,  and  turned  it 
thoughtfully  in  his  fingers  for  a  moment.  One 
side  of  it  had  apparently  struck  a  bone  in  the  neck 
of  the  murdered  man,  and  was  flattened.  The 
other  side  was  still  perfectly  smooth.  With  his 
inevitable  magnifying-glass  he  scrutinised  the 
bullet  on  every  side.  I  watched  his  face  anx- 
iously, and  I  could  see  that  he  was  very  intent 
and  very  excited. 

"Extraordinary,  most  extraordinary,"  he  said 
to  himself  as  he  turned  it  over  and  over. 
"Where  did  you  say  this  bullet  struck?" 

"In  the  fleshy  part  of  the  neck,  quite  a  little 
back  of  and  below  his  ear  and  just  above  his 
collar.  There  wasn't  much  bleeding.  I  think  it 
must  have  struck  the  base  of  his  brain." 

"It  didn't  strike  his  collar  or  hair?" 

"No,"  replied  the  inspector. 

"Inspector,  I  think  we  shall  be  able  to  put  our 


THE   SILENT   BULLET  11 

hands  on  the  murderer — I  think  we  can  get  a  con- 
viction, sir,  on  the  evidence  that  I  shall  get  from 
this  bullet  in  my  laboratory. " 

"That's  pretty  much  like  a  story-book," 
drawled  the  inspector  incredulously,  shaking  his 
head. 

"Perhaps,"  smiled  Kennedy.  "But  there  will 
still  be  plenty  of  work  for  the  police  to  do,  too. 
I've  only  got  a  clue  to  the  murderer.  It  will  tax 
the  whole  organisation  to  follow  it  up,  believe  me. 
Now,  Inspector,  can  you  spare  the  time  to  go  down 
to  Parker's  office  and  take  me  over  the  ground? 
No  doubt  we  can  develop  something  else  there." 

"Sure,"  answered  O'Connor,  and  within  five 
minutes  we  were  hurrying  down  town  in  one  of 
the  department  automobiles. 

We  found  the  office  under  guard  of  one  of  the 
Central  Office  men,  while  in  the  outside  office 
Parker's  confidential  clerk  and  a  few  assistants 
were  still  at  work  in  a  subdued  and  awed  manner. 
Men  were  working  in  many  other  Wall  Street 
offices  that  night  during  the  panic,  but  in  none 
was  there  more  reason  for  it  than  here.  Later 
I  learned  that  it  was  the  quiet  tenacity  of  this 
confidential  clerk  that  saved  even  as  much  of 
Parker's  estate  as  was  saved  for  his  widow- 
little  enough  it  was,  too.  What  he  saved  for  the 
clients  of  the  firm  no  one  will  ever  know.  Some- 
how or  other  I  liked  John  Downey,  the  clerk,  from 
the  moment  I  was  introduced  to  him.  He  seemed 


12  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

to  me,  at  least,  to  be  the  typical  confidential  clerk 
who  would  carry  a  secret  worth  millions  and 
keep  it. 

The  officer  in  charge  touched  his  hat  to  the  in- 
spector, and  Downey  hastened  to  put  himself  at 
our  service.  It  was  plain  that  the  murder  had 
completely  mystified  him,  and  that  he  was  as  anx- 
ious as  we  were  to  get  at  the  bottom  of  it. 

"Mr.  Downey,"  began  Kennedy,  "I  understand 
you  were  present  when  this  sad  event  took  place." 

"Yes,  sir,  sitting  right  here  at  the  directors' 
table,"  he  replied,  taking  a  chair,  "like  this." 

"Now  can  you  recollect  just  how  Mr.  Parker 
acted  when  he  was  shot?  Could  you — er — could 
you  take  his  place  and  show  us  just  how  it  hap- 
pened?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Downey.  "He  was  sitting 
here  at  the  head  of  the  table.  Mr.  Bruce,  who  is 
the  'Co/  of  the  firm,  had  been  sitting  here  at  his 
right ;  I  was  at  the  left.  The  inspector  has  a  list 
of  all  the  others  present.  That  door  to  the  right 
was  open,  and  Mrs.  Parker  and  some  other  ladies 
were  in  the  room — " 

"Mrs.  Parker?"  broke  in  Kennedy. 

"Yes.  Like  a  good  many  brokerage  firms  we 
have  a  ladies'  room.  Many  ladies  are  among  our 
clients.  We  make  a  point  of  catering  to  them. 
At  that  time  I  recollect  the  door  was  open — all 
the  doors  were  open.  It  was  not  a  secret  meeting. 
Mr.  Bruce  had  just  gone  into  the  ladies'  depart- 


THE    SILENT   BULLET  & 

ment,  I  think  to  ask  some  of  them  to  stand  by  the 
firm — he  was  an  artist  at  smoothing  over  the 
fears  of  customers,  particularly  women.  Just  be- 
fore he  went  in  I  had  seen  the  ladies  go  in  a  group 
toward  the  far  end  of  the  room — to  look  down  at 
the  line  of  depositors  on  the  street,  which  reached 
around  the  corner  from  one  of  the  trust  com- 
panies, I  thought.  I  was  making  a  note  of  an 
order  to  send  into  the  outside  office  there  on  the 
left,  and  had  just  pushed  this  button  here  under 
the  table  to  call  a  boy  to  carry  it.  Mr.  Parker 
had  just  received  a  letter  by  special  delivery,  and 
seemed  considerably  puzzled  over  it.  No,  I  don't 
know  what  it  was  about.  Of  a  sudden  I  saw  him 
start  in  his  chair,  rise  up  unsteadily,  clap  his  hand 
on  the  back  of  his  head,  stagger  across  the  floor — » 
like  this— and  fall  here." 

' '  Then  what  happened  ? ' ' 

"Why,  I  rushed  to  pick  him  up.  Everything 
was  confusion.  I  recall  someone  behind  me  say- 
ing, 'Here,  boy,  take  all  these  papers  off  the  table 
and  carry  them  into  my  office  before  they  get  lost 
in  the  excitement.'  I  thrsk  it  was  Bruce 's  voice. 
The  next  moment  I  heard  someone  say,  'Stand 
back,  Mrs.  Parker  has  fainted.'  But  I  didn't  pay 
much  attention,  for  I  was  calling  to  someone  not 
to  get  a  doctor  over  the  telephone,  but  to  go  down 
to  the  fifth  floor  where  one  has  an  office.  I  made 
Mr.  Parker  as  comfortable  as  I  could.  There 
wasn't  much  I  could  do.  He  seemed  to  want  to 


14  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

say  something  to  me,  but  he  couldn't  talk.  He 
was  paralysed,  at  least  his  throat  was.  But  I  did 
manage  to  make  out  finally  what  sounded  to  me 
like,  'Tell  her  I  don't  believe  the  scandal,  I  don't 
believe  it.'  But  before  he  could  say  whom  to  tell 
he  had  again  become  unconscious,  and  by  the  time 
the  doctor  arrived  he  was  dead.  I  guess  you 
know  everything  else  as  well  as  I  do." 

"You  didn't  hear  the  shot  fired  from  any  par- 
ticular direction?"  asked  Kennedy. 

"No,  sir." 

"Well,  where  do  you  think  it  came  from?" 

"That's  what  puzzles  me,  sir.  The  only  thing 
I  can  figure  out  is  that  it  was  fired  from  the  out- 
side office — perhaps  by  some  customer  who  had 
lost  money  and  sought  revenge.  But  no  one  out 
there  heard  it  either,  any  more  than  they  did  in 
the  directors'  room  or  the  ladies'  department." 

"About  that  message,"  asked  Kennedy,  ignor- 
ing what  to  me  seemed  to  be  the  most  important 
feature  of  the  case,  the  mystery  of  the  silent 
bullet.  "Didn't  you  see  it  after  all  was  over!" 

"No,  sir;  in  fact  I  had  forgotten  about  it  till 
this  moment  when  you  asked  me  to  reconstruct 
the  circumstances  exactly.  No,  sir,  I  don't  know 
a  thing  about  it.  I  can't  say  it  impressed  itself 
on  my  mind  at  the  time,  either. ' ' 

"What  did  Mrs.  Parker  do  when  she  came  to?'* 

"Oh,  she  cried  as  I  have  never  seen  a  woman 
cry  before.  He  was  dead  by  that  time,  of  course. 


THE    SILENT   BULLET  15 

Mr.  Bruce  and  I  saw  her  down  in  the  elevator  to 
her  car.  In  fact,  the  doctor,  who  had  arrived, 
said  that  the  sooner  she  was  taken  home  the  bet- 
ter she  would  be.  She  was  quite  hysterical." 

'  *  Did  she  say  anything  that  you  remember  t ' ' 

Downey  hesitated. 

"Out  with  it,  Downey,"  said  the  inspector. 
"What  did  she  say  as  she  was  going  down  in  the 
elevator  ? ' ' 

"Nothing." 

"Tell  us.    I'll  arrest  you  if  you  don't." 

"Nothing  about  the  murder,  on  my  honour," 
protested  Downey. 

Kennedy  leaned  over  suddenly  and  shot  a  re- 
mark at  him,  "Then  it  was  about  the  note." 

Downey  was  surprised,  but  not  quickly  enough. 
Still  he  seemed  to  be  considering  something,  and 
in  a  moment  he  said : 

"I  don't  know  what  it  was  about,  but  I  feel  it 
is  my  duty,  after  all,  to  tell  you.  I  heard  her  say, 
'I  wonder  if  he  knew.'  " 

"Nothing  else!" 

"Nothing  else." 

"What  happened  after  you  came  back?" 

"We  entered  the  ladies'  department.  No  one 
was  there.  A  woman's  automobile-coat  was 
thrown  over  a  chair  in  a  heap.  Mr.  Bruce  picked 
it  up.  'It's  Mrs.  Parker's,'  he  said.  He 
wrapped  it  up  hastily,  and  rang  for  a  messenger. ' ' 

"Where  did  he  send  it!" 


16  THE    SILENT   BULLET 

1  'To  Mrs.  Parker,  I  suppose.  I  didn't  hear  the 
address." 

We  next  went  over  the  whole  suite  of  offices, 
conducted  by  Mr.  Downey.  I  noted  how  care- 
fully Kennedy  looked  into  the  directors'  room 
through  the  open  door  from  the  ladies'  depart- 
ment. He  stood  at  such  an  angle  that  had  he  been 
the  assassin  he  could  scarcely  have  been  seen  ex- 
cept by  those  sitting  immediately  next  Mr.  Parker 
at  the  directors'  table.  The  street  windows  were 
directly  in  front  of  him,  and  back  of  him  was  the 
chair  on  which  the  motor-coat  had  been  found. 

In  Parker's  own  office  we  spent  some  time,  as 
well  as  in  Bruce 's.  Kennedy  made  a  search  for 
the  note,  but  finding  nothing  in  either  office, 
turned  out  the  contents  of  Bruce 's  scrap-basket. 
There  didn  't  seem  to  be  anything  in  it  to  interest 
him,  however,  even  after  he  had  pieced  several 
torn  bits  of  scraps  together  with  much  difficulty, 
and  he  was  about  to  turn  the  papers  back  again, 
when  he  noticed  something  sticking  to  the  side  of 
the  basket.  It  looked  like  a  mass  of  wet  paper, 
and  that  was  precisely  what  it  was. 

"That's  queer,"  said  Kennedy,  picking  it  loose. 
Then  he  wrapped  it  up  carefully  and  put  it  in  his 
pocket.  "Inspector,  can  you  lend  me  one  of  your 
men  for  a  couple  of  days?"  he  asked,  as  we  were 
preparing  to  leave.  "I  shall  want  to  send  him 
out  of  town  to-night,  and  shall  probably  need  his 
services  when  he  gets  back. ' ' 


THE   SILENT  BULLET  17 

"Very  well.  Kiley  will  be  just  the  fellow. 
We'll  go  back  to  headquarters,  and  I'll  put  him 
under  your  orders." 

It  was  not  until  late  in  the  following  day  that 
I  saw  Kennedy  again.  It  had  been  a  busy  day 
on  the  Star.  We  had  gone  to  work  that  morning 
expecting  to  see  the  very  financial  heavens  fall. 
But  just  about  five  minutes  to  ten,  before  the 
Stock  Exchange  opened,  the  news  came  in  over 
the  wire  from  our  financial  man  on  Broad  Street : 
"The  System  has  forced  James  Bruce,  partner 
of  Kerr  Parker,  the  dead  banker,  to  sell  his  rail- 
road, steamship,  and  rubber  holdings  to  it.  On 
this  condition  it  promises  unlimited  support  to 
the  market." 

"Forced!"  muttered  the  managing  editor,  as 
he  waited  on  the  office  'phone  to  get  the  compos- 
ing-room, so  as  to  hurry  up  the  few  lines  in  red 
ink  on  the  first  page  and  beat  our  rivals  on  the 
streets  with  the  first  extras.  "Why,  he's  been 
working  to  bring  that  about  for  the  past  two 
weeks.  What  that  System  doesn't  control  isn't 
worth  having — it  edits  the  news  before  our  men 
get  it,  and  as  for  grist  for  the  divorce  courts,  and 
tragedies,  well — Hello,  Jenkins,  yes,  a  special  ex- 
tra. Change  the  big  heads — copy  is  on  the  way 
up — rush  it." 

"So  you  think  this  Parker  case  is  a  mess  I"  I 
asked. 

"I  know  it.    That's  a  pretty  swift  bunch  of  fe- 


18  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

males  that  have  been  speculating  at  Kerr  Parker 
&  Co.'s.  I  understand  there's  one  Titian-haired 
young  lady — who,  by  the  way,  has  at  least  one 
husband  who  hasn't  yet  been  divorced — who  is  a 
sort  of  ringleader,  though  she  rarely  goes  person- 
ally to  her  brokers'  offices.  She's  one  of  those 
uptown  plungers,  and  the  story  is  that  she  has  a 
whole  string  of  scalps  of  alleged  Sunday-school 
superintendents  at  her  belt.  She  can  make  Bruce 
do  pretty  nearly  anything,  they  say.  He's  the 
latest  conquest.  I  got  the  story  on  pretty  good 
authority,  but  until  I  verified  the  names,  dates, 
and  places,  of  course  I  wouldn't  dare  print  a  line 
of  it.  The  story  goes  that  her  husband  is  a 
hanger-on  of  the  System,  and  that  she's  been 
working  in  their  interest,  too.  That  was  why  he 
was  so  complacent  over  the  whole  affair.  They 
put  her  up  to  capturing  Bruce,  and  after  she  had 
acquired  an  influence  over  him  they  worked  it  so 
that  she  made  him  make  love  to  Mrs.  Parker. 
It's  a  long  story,  but  that  isn't  all  of  it.  The 
point  was,  you  see,  that  by  this  devious  route  they 
hoped  to  worm  out  of  Mrs.  Parker  some  inside  in- 
formation about  Parker's  rubber  schemes,  which 
he  hadn't  divulged  even  to  his  partners  in  busi- 
ness. It  was  a  deep  and  carefully  planned  plot, 
and  some  of  the  conspirators  were  pretty  deeply 
in  the  mire,  I  guess.  I  wish  I'd  had  all  the  facts 
about  who  this  red-haired  female  Machiavelli  was 
— what  a  piece  of  muckraking  it  would  have  made ! 


THE   SILENT   BULLET  19 

Oh,  here  comes  the  rest  of  the  news  story  over  the 
wire.  By  Jove,  it  is  said  on  good  authority  that 
Bruce  will  be  taken  in  as  one  of  the  board  of  di- 
rectors. What  do  you  think  of  that?" 

So  that  was  how  the  wind  lay — Bruce  making 
love  to  Mrs.  Parker  and  she  presumably  betraying 
her  husband's  secrets.  I  thought  I  saw  it  all:  the 
note  from  somebody  exposing  the  scheme,  Park- 
er's incredulity,  Bruce  sitting  by  him  and  catch- 
ing sight  of  the  note,  his  hurrying  out  into  the 
ladies'  department,  and  then  the  shot.  But  who 
fired  it?  After  all,  I  had  only  picked  up  another 
clue. 

Kennedy  was  not  at  the  apartment  at  dinner, 
and  an  inquiry  at  the  laboratory  was  fruitless 
also.  So  I  sat  down  to  fidget  for  a  while. 
Pretty  soon  the  buzzer  on  the  door  sounded,  and 
I  opened  it  to  find  a  messenger-boy  with  a  large 
brown  paper  parcel. 

"Is  Mr.  Bruce  here!"  he  asked. 

"Why,  no,  he  doesn't — "  then  I  checked  my- 
self and  added:  "He  will  be  here  presently.  Sou 
can  leave  the  bundle." 

"Well,  this  is  the  parcel  he  telephoned  for. 
His  valet  told  me  to  tell  him  that  they  had  a  hard 
time  to  find  it,  but  he  guesses  it's  all  right.  The 
charges  are  forty  cents.  Sign  here." 

I  signed  the  book,  feeling  like  a  thief,  and  the 
boy  departed.  What  it  all  meant  I  could  not 
guess. 


20  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

Just  then  I  heard  a  key  in  the  lock,  and  Ken- 
nedy came  in. 

"Is  your  name  Bruce!"  I  asked. 

"Why!"-  he  replied  eagerly.  "Has  anything 
come!" 

I  pointed  to  the  package.  Kennedy  made  a 
dive  for  it  and  unwrapped  it.  It  was  a  woman's 
pongee  automobile-coat.  He  held  it  up  to  the 
light.  The  pocket  on  the  right-hand  side  was 
scorched  and  burned,  and  a  hole  was  torn  clean 
through  it.  I  gasped  when  the  full  significance 
of  it  dawned  on  me. 

"How  did  you  get  it!"  I  exclaimed  at  last  in 
surprise. 

"That's  where  organisation  comes  in,"  said 
Kennedy.  "The  police  at  my  request  went  over 
every  messenger  call  from  Parker's  office  that 
afternoon,  and  traced  every  one  of  them  up.  At 
last  they  found  one  that  led  to  Bruce 's  apart- 
ment. None  of  them  led  to  Mrs.  Parker's  home. 
The  rest  were  all  business  calls  and  satisfactorily 
accounted  for.  I  reasoned  that  this  was  the  one 
that  involved  the  disappearance  of  the  automobile- 
coat.  It  was  a  chance  worth  taking,  so  I  got 
Downey  to  call  up  Bruce 's  valet.  The  valet  of 
course  recognised  Downey's  voice  and  suspected 
nothing.  Downey  assumed  to  know  all  about  the 
coat  in  the  package  received  yesterday.  He 
asked  to  have  it  sent  up  here.  I  see  the  scheme 
worked." 


THE   SILENT   BULLET  21 

"But,  Kennedy,  do  you  think  she — "  I  stopped, 
speechless,  looking  at  the  scorched  coat. 

"Nothing  to  say — yet,"  he  replied  laconically. 
"But  if  you  could  tell  me  anything  about  that  note 
Parker  received  I'd  thank  you." 

I  related  what  our  managing  editor  had  said 
that  morning.  Kennedy  only  raised  his  eyebrows 
a  fraction  of  an  inch. 

"I  had  guessed  something  of  that  sort,"  he  said 
merely.  "I'm  glad  to  find  it  confirmed  even  by 
hearsay  evidence.  This  red-haired  young  lady 
interests  me.  Not  a  very  definite  description,  but 
better  than  nothing  at  all.  I  wonder  who  she  is. 
Ah,  well,  what  do  you  say  to  a  stroll  down  the 
White  Way  before  I  go  to  my  laboratory?  I'd 
like  a  breath  of  air  to  relax  my  mind." 

We  had  got  no  further  than  the  first  theatre 
when  Kennedy  slapped  me  on  the  back.  "By 
George,  Jameson,  she's  an  actress,  of  course." 

"Who  is?  What's  the  matter  with  you,  Ken- 
nedy ?  Are  you  crazy  ? ' ' 

"The  red-haired  person — she  must  be  an  ac- 
tress. Don't  you  remember  the  auburn-haired 
leading  lady  in  the  'Follies' — the  girl  who  sings 
that  song  about  'Mary,  Mary,  quite  contrary'? 
Her  stage  name,  you  know,  is  Phoebe  La  Neige. 
Well,  if  it's  she  who  is  concerned  in  this  case  I 
don't  think  she'll  be  playing  to-night.  Let's  in- 
quire at  the  box-office." 

She  wasn't  playing,  but  just  what  it  had  to  do 


22  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

with  anything  in  particular  I  couldn't  see,  and  I 
said  as  much. 

"Why,  Walter,  you'd  never  do  as  a  detective. 
You  lack  intuition.  Sometimes  I  think  I  haven't 
quite  enough  of  it,  either.  Why  didn  't  I  think  of 
that  sooner?  Don't  you  know  she  is  the  wife  of 
Adolphus  Hesse,  the  most  inveterate  gambler  in 
stocks  in  the  System?  Why,  I  had  only  to  put 
two  and  two  together  and  the  whole  thing  flashed 
on  me  in  an  instant.  Isn't  it  a  good  hypothesis 
that  she  is  the  red-haired  woman  in  the  case,  the 
tool  of  the  System  in  which  her  husband  is  so 
heavily  involved?  I'll  have  to  add  her  to  my  list 
of  suspects." 

"Why,  you  don't  think  she  did  the  shooting?" 
I  asked,  half  hoping,  I  must  admit,  for  an  assent- 
ing nod  from  him. 

"Well,"  he  answered  dryly,  "one  shouldn't  let 
any  preconceived  hypothesis  stand  between  him 
and  the  truth.  I've  made  a  guess  at  the  whole 
thing  already.  It  may  or  it  may  not  be  right. 
Anyhow  she  will  fit  into  it.  And  if  it's  not  right, 
IVe  got  to  be  prepared  to  make  a  new  guess, 
that's  all." 

When  we  reached  the  laboratory  on  our  return, 
the  inspector's  man  Riley  was  there,  waiting  im- 
patiently for  Kennedy. 

"What  luck?"  asked  Kennedy. 

"I've  got  a  list  of  purchasers  of  that  kind  of 
revolver,"  he  said.  "We  have  been  to  every 


THE   SILENT   BULLET  23 

sporting-goods  and  arms-store  in  the  city  which 
bought  them  from  the  factory,  and  I  could  lay  my 
hands  on  pretty  nearly  every  one  of  those  weap- 
ons in  twenty-four  hours — provided,  of  course, 
they  haven't  been  secreted  or  destroyed." 

" Pretty  nearly  all  isn't  good  enough,"  said 
Kennedy.  "It  will  have  to  be  all,  unless — " 

"That  name  is  in  the  list,"  whispered  Eiley 
hoarsely. 

"Oh,  then  it's  all  right,"  answered  Kennedy, 
brightening  up.  "Eiley,  I  will  say  that  you're 
a  wonder  at  using  the  organisation  in  ferreting 
out  such  things.  There's  just  one  more  thing  I 
want  you  to  do.  I  want  a  sample  of  the  note- 
paper  in  the  private  desks  of  every  one  of  these 
people."  He  handed  the  policeman  a  list  of  his 
* '  suspects, "  as  he  called  them.  It  included  nearly 
every  one  mentioned  in  the  case. 

Kiley  studied  it  dubiously  and  scratched  his 
chin  thoughtfully.  "That's  a  hard  one,  Mr.  Ken- 
nedy, sir.  You  see,  it  means  getting  into  so  many 
different  houses  and  apartments.  Now  you  don't 
want  to  do  it  by  means  of  a  warrant,  do  you,  sir? 
Of  course  not.  Well,  then,  how  can  we  get  in?" 

"You're  a  pretty  good-looking  chap  yourself, 
Riley, ' '  said  Kennedy.  ' '  I  should  think  you  could 
jolly  a  housemaid,  if  necessary.  Anyhow,  you  can 
get  the  fellow  on  the  beat  to  do  it — if  he  isn't  al- 
ready to  be  found  in  the  kitchen.  Why,  I  see  a 
dozen  ways  of  getting  the  notepaper." 


24  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"Oh,  it's  me  that's  the  lady-killer,  sir,"  grinned 
Eiley.  "I'm  a  regular  Blarney  stone  when  I'm 
out  on  a  job  of  that  sort.  Sure,  I'll  have  some  of 
them  for  you  in  the  morning." 

"Bring  me  what  you  get,  the  first  thing  in  the 
morning,  even  if  you've  landed  only  a  few  sam- 
ples," said  Kennedy,  as  Riley  departed,  straight- 
ening his  tie  and  brushing  his  hat  on  his  sleeve. 

"And  now,  Walter,  you  too  must  excuse  me  to- 
night," said  Craig.  "I've  got  a  lot  to  do,  and 
sha'n't  be  up  to  our  apartment  till  very  late — or 
early.  But  I  feel  sure  I've  got  a  strangle-hold  on 
this  mystery.  If  I  get  those  papers  from  Riley 
in  good  time  to-morrow  I  shall  invite  you  and  sev- 
eral others  to  a  grand  demonstration  here  to- 
morrow night.  Don't  forget.  Keep  the  whole 
evening  free.  It  will  be  a  big  story." 

Kennedy's  laboratory  was  brightly  lighted 
when  I  arrived  early  the  next  evening.  One  by 
one  his  "guests"  dropped  in.  It  was  evident  that 
they  had  little  liking  for  the  visit,  but  the  coroner 
had  sent  out  the  "invitations,"  and  they  had 
nothing  to  do  but  accept.  Each  one  was  politely 
welcomed  by  the  professor  and  assigned  a  seat, 
much  as  he  would  have  done  with  a  group  of  stu- 
dents. The  inspector  and  the  coroner  sat  back 
a  little.  Mrs.  Parker,  Mr.  Downey,  Mr.  Bruce, 
myself,  and  Miss  La  Neige  sat  in  that  order  in  the 
very  narrow  and  uncomfortable  little  armchairs 
used  by  the  students  during  lectures. 


THE   SILENT   BULLET  25 

At  last  Kennedy  was  ready  to  begin.  He  took 
his  position  behind  the  long,  flat-topped  table 
which  he  used  for  his  demonstrations  before  his 
classes.  "I  realise,  ladies  and  gentlemen,"  he  be- 
gan formally,  "that  I  am  about  to  do  a  very  un- 
usual thing;  but,  as  you  all  know,  the  police  and 
the  coroner  have  been  completely  baffled  by  this 
terrible  mystery  and  have  requested  me  to  at- 
tempt to  clear  up  at  least  certain  points  in  it.  I 
will  begin  what  I  have  to  say  by  remarking  that 
the  tracing  out  of  a  crime  like  this  differs  in  noth- 
ing, except  as  regards  the  subject-matter,  from 
the  search  for  a  scientific  truth.  The  forcing  of 
man's  secrets  is  like  the  forcing  of  nature's  se- 
crets. Both  are  pieces  of  detective  work.  The 
methods  employed  in  the  detection  of  crime  are, 
or  rather  should  be,  like  the  methods  employed 
in  the  process  of  discovering  scientific  truth.  In 
a  crime  of  this  sort,  two  kinds  of  evidence  need 
to  be  secured.  Circumstantial  evidence  must  first 
be  marshalled,  and  then  a  motive  must  be  found. 
I  have  been  gathering  facts.  But  to  omit  motives 
and  rest  contented  with  mere  facts  would  be  in- 
conclusive. It  would  never  convince  anybody  or 
convict  anybody.  In  other  words,  circumstantial 
evidence  must  first  lead  to  a  suspect,  and  then  this 
suspect  must  prove  equal  to  accounting  for  the 
facts.  It  is  my  hope  that  each  of  you  may  con- 
tribute something  that  will  be  of  service  in  ar- 
riving at  the  truth  of  this  unfortunate  incident." 


26  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

The  tension  was  not  relieved  even  when  Ken- 
nedy stopped  speaking  and  began  to  fuss  with  a 
little  upright  target  which  he  set  up  at  one  end  of 
his  table.  We  seemed  to  be  seated  over  a  powder- 
magazine  which  threatened  to  explode  at  any  mo- 
ment. I,  at  least,  felt  the  tension  so  greatly  that 
it  was  only  after  he  had  started  speaking  again 
that  I  noticed  that  the  target  was  composed  of  a 
thick  layer  of  some  putty-like  material. 

Holding  a  thirty-two-calibre  pistol  in  his  right 
hand  and  aiming  it  at  the  target,  Kennedy  picked 
up  a  large  piece  of  coarse  homespun  from  the 
table  and  held  it  loosely  over  the  muzzle  of  the 
gun.  Then  he  fired.  The  bullet  tore  through  the 
cloth,  sped  through  the  air,  and  buried  itself  in  the 
target.  With  a  knife  he  pried  it  out. 

"I  doubt  if  even  the  inspector  himself  could 
have  told  us  that  when  an  ordinary  leaden  bullet 
is  shot  through  a  woven  fabric  the  weave  of  that 
fabric  is  in  the  majority  of  cases  impressed  on  the 
bullet,  sometimes  clearly,  sometimes  faintly." 

Here  Kennedy  took  up  a  piece  of  fine  batiste 
and  fired  another  bullet  through  it. 

"Every  leaden  bullet,  as  I  have  said,  which  has 
struck  such  a  fabric  bears  an  impression  of  the 
threads  which  is  recognisable  even  when  the  bullet 
has  penetrated  deeply  into  the  body.  It  is  only 
obliterated  partially  or  entirely  when  the  bullet 
has  been  flattened  by  striking  a  bone  or  other  hard 
object.  Even  then,  as  in  this  case,  if  only  a  part 


THE   SILENT   BULLET  27 

of  the  bullet  is  flattened  the  remainder  may  still 
show  the  marks  of  the  fabric.  A  heavy  warp,  say 
of  cotton  velvet  or,  as  I  have  here,  homespun,  will 
be  imprinted  well  on  the  bullet,  but  even  a  fine 
batiste,  containing  one  hundred  threads  to  the 
inch,  will  show  marks.  Even  layers  of  goods  such 
as  a  coat,  shirt,  and  undershirt  may  each  leave 
their  marks,  but  that  does  not  concern  us  in  this 
case.  Now  I  have  here  a  piece  of  pongee  silk, 
cut  from  a  woman's  automobile-coat.  I  dis- 
charge the  bullet  through  it — so.  I  compare  the 
bullet  now  with  the  others  and  with  the  one 
probed  from  the  neck  of  Mr.  Parker.  I  find  that 
the  marks  on  that  fatal  bullet  correspond  pre- 
cisely with  those  on  the  bullet  fired  through  the 
pongee  coat." 

Startling  as  was  this  revelation,  Kennedy 
paused  only  an  instant  before  the  next. 

"Now  I  have  another  demonstration.  A  cer- 
tain note  figures  in  this  case.  Mr.  Parker  was 
reading  it,  or  perhaps  re-reading  it,  at  the  time 
he  was  shot.  I  have  not  been  able  to  obtain  that 
note — at  least  not  in  a  form  such  as  I  could  use 
in  discovering  what  were  its  contents.  But  in  a 
certain  wastebasket  I  found  a  mass  of  wet  and 
pulp-like  paper.  It  had  been  cut  up,  macerated, 
perhaps  chewed ;  perhaps  it  had  been  also  soaked 
with  water.  There  was  a  washbasin  with  running 
water  in  this  room.  The  ink  had  run,  and  of 
course  was  illegible.  The  thing  was  so  unusual 


28  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

that  I  at  once  assumed  that  this  was  the  remains 
of  the  note  in  question.  Under  ordinary  circum- 
stances it  would  be  utterly  valueless  as  a  clue  to 
anything.  But  to-day  science  is  not  ready  to  let 
anything  pass  as  valueless. 

"I  found  on  microscopic  examination  that  it 
was  an  uncommon  linen  bond  paper,  and  I  have 
taken  a  large  number  of  microphotographs  of  the 
fibres  in  it.  They  are  all  similar.  I  have  here 
also  about  a  hundred  microphotographs  of  the 
fibres  in  other  kinds  of  paper,  many  of  them 
bonds.  These  I  have  accumulated  from  time  to 
time  in  my  study  of  the  subject.  None  of  them, 
as  you  can  see,  shows  fibres  resembling  this  one 
in  question,  so  we  may  conclude  that  it  is  of  un- 
common quality.  Through  an  agent  of  the  police 
I  have  secured  samples  of  the  notepaper  of 
every  one  who  could  be  concerned,  as  far  as  I 
could  see,  with  this  case.  Here  are  the  photo- 
graphs of  the  fibres  of  these  various  notepapers, 
and  among  them  all  is  just  one  that  corresponds 
to  the  fibres  in  the  wet  mass  of  paper  I  discov- 
ered in  the  scrap-basket.  Now  lest  anyone  should 
question  the  accuracy  of  this  method  I  might  cite 
a  case  where  a  man  had  been  arrested  in  Germany 
charged  with  stealing  a  government  bond. 
He  was  not  searched  till  later.  There  was 
no  evidence  save  that  after  the  arrest  a  large 
number  of  spitballs  were  found  around  the  court- 
yard under  his  cell  window.  This  method  of  com- 


THE    SILENT   BULLET  29 

paring  the  fibres  with  those  of  the  regular  govern- 
ment paper  was  used,  and  by  it  the  man  was  con- 
victed of  stealing  the  bond.  I  think  it  is  almost 
unnecessary  to  add  that  in  the  present  case  we 
know  precisely  who— " 

At  this  point  the  tension  was  so  great  that  it 
snapped.  Miss  La  Neige,  who  was  sitting  beside 
me,  had  been  leaning  forward  involuntarily.  Al- 
most as  if  the  words  were  wrung  from  her  she 
whispered  hoarsely:  "They  put  me  up  to  doing 
it;  I  didn't  want  to.  But  the  affair  had  gone  too 
far.  I  couldn't  see  him  lost  before  my  very  eyes. 
I  didn't  want  her  to  get  him.  The  quickest  way 
out  was  to  tell  the  whole  story  to  Mr.  Parker  and 
stop  it.  It  was  the  only  way  I  could  think  of  to 
stop  this  thing  between  another  man's  wife  and 
the  man  I  loved  better  than  my  own  husband. 
God  knows,  Professor  Kennedy,  that  was  all — " 

"Calm  yourself,  madame,"  interrupted  Ken- 
nedy soothingly.  "Calm  yourself.  What's  done 
is  done.  The  truth  must  come  out.  Be  calm. 
Now,"  he  continued,  after  the  first  storm  of  re- 
morse had  spent  itself  and  we  were  all  outwardly 
composed  again,  "we  have  said  nothing  whatever 
of  the  most  mysterious  feature  of  the  case,  the 
firing  of  the  shot.  The  murderer  could  have 
thrust  the  weapon  into  the  pocket  or  the  folds  of 
this  coat" — here  he  drew  forth  the  automobile! 
coat  and  held  it  aloft,  displaying  the  bullet  hole — 
"and  he  or  she  (I  will  not  say  which)  could  have 


30  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

discharged  the  pistol  unseen.  By  removing  and 
secreting  the  weapon  afterward  one  very  impor- 
tant piece  of  evidence  would  be  suppressed. 
This  person  could  have  used  such  a  cartridge  as 
I  have  here,  made  with  smokeless  powder,  and  the 
coat  would  have  concealed  the  flash  of  the  shot 
very  effectively.  There  would  have  been  no 
smoke.  But  neither  this  coat  nor  even  a  heavy 
blanket  would  have  deadened  the  report  of  the 
shot. 

"What  are  we  to  think  of  that?  Only  one 
thing.  I  have  often  wondered  why  the  thing 
wasn't  done  before.  In  fact  I  have  been  waiting 
for  it  to  occur.  There  is  an  invention  that  makes 
it  almost  possible  to  strike  a  man  down  with  im- 
punity in  broad  daylight  in  any  place  where  there 
is  sumcient  noise  to  cover  up  a  click,  a  slight 
'Pouf !'  and  the  whir  of  the  bullet  in  the  air. 

"I  refer  to  this  little  device  of  a  Hartford  in- 
ventor. I  place  it  over  the  muzzle  of  the  thirty- 
two-calibre  revolver  I  have  so  far  been  using — so. 
Now,  Mr.  Jameson,  if  you  will  sit  at  that  type- 
writer over  there  and  write — anything  so  long  as 
you  keep  the  keys  clicking.  The  inspector  will 
start  that  imitation  stock-ticker  in  the  corner. 
Now  we  are  ready.  I  cover  the  pistol  with  a 
cloth.  I  defy  anyone  in  this  room  to  tell  me  the 
exact  moment  when  I  discharged  the  pistol.  I 
could  have  shot  any  of  you,  and  an  outsider  not 
in  the  secret  would  never  have  thought  that  I  was 


THE   SILENT   BULLET  31 

the  culprit.  To  a  certain  extent  I  have  repro- 
duced the  conditions  under  which  this  shooting 
occurred. 

"At  once  on  being  sure  of  this  feature  of  the 
case  I  despatched  a  man  to  Hartford  to  see  this 
inventor.  The  man  obtained  from  him  a  com- 
plete list  of  all  the  dealers  in  New  York  to  whom 
such  devices  had  been  sold.  The  man  also  traced 
every  sale  of  those  dealers.  He  did  not  actually 
obtain  the  weapon,  but  if  he  is  working  on  sched- 
ule-time according  to  agreement  he  is  at  this  mo- 
ment armed  with  a  search-warrant  and  is  ran- 
sacking every  possible  place  where  the  person 
suspected  of  this  crime  could  have  concealed  his 
weapon.  For,  one  of  the  persons  intimately  con- 
nected with  this  case  purchased  not  long  ago  a 
silencer  for  a  thirty-two-calibre  revolver,  and  I 
presume  that  that  person  carried  the  gun  and  the 
silencer  at  the  time  of  the  murder  of  Kerr 
Parker. " 

Kennedy  concluded  in  triumph,  his  voice  high 
pitched,  his  eyes  flashing.  Yet  to  all  outward  ap- 
pearance not  a  heart-beat  was  quickened.  Some- 
one in  that  room  had  an  amazing  store  of  self- 
possession.  The  fear  flitted  across  my  mind  that 
even  at  the  last  Kennedy  was  baffled. 

"I  had  anticipated  some  such  anti-climax, "  he 
continued  after  a  moment.  "I  am  prepared  for 
it." 

He  touched  a  bell,  and  the  door  to  the  next  room 


32  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

opened.  One  of  Kennedy's  graduate  students 
stepped  in. 

"You  have  the  records,  Whiting?"  he  asked* 

"Yes,  Professor." 

"I  may  say,"  said  Kennedy,  "that  each  of  your 
chairs  is  wired  under  the  arm  in  such  a  way  as  to 
betray  on  an  appropriate  indicator  in  the  next 
room  every  sudden  and  undue  emotion.  Though 
it  may  be  concealed  from  the  eye,  even  of  one  like 
me  who  stands  facing  you,  such  emotion  is  never- 
theless expressed  by  physical  pressure  on  the 
arms  of  the  chair.  It  is  a  test  that  is  used  fre- 
quently with  students  to  demonstrate  various 
points  of  psychology.  You  needn't  raise  your 
arms  from  the  chairs,  ladies  and  gentlemen.  The 
tests  are  all  over  now.  What  did  they  show, 
Whiting?" 

The  student  read  what  he  had  been  noting  in 
the  next  room.  At  the  production  of  the  coat 
during  the  demonstration  of  the  markings  of  the 
bullet,  Mrs.  Parker  had  betrayed  great  emotion, 
Mr.  Bruce  had  done  likewise,  and  nothing  more 
than  ordinary  emotion  had  been  noted  for  the 
rest  of  us.  Miss  La  Neige's  automatic  record 
during  the  tracing  out  of  the  sending  of  the  note 
to  Parker  had  been  especially  unfavourable  to 
her;  Mr.  Bruce  showed  almost  as  much  excite- 
ment; Mrs.  Parker  very  little  and  Downey  very 
little.  It  was  all  set  forth  in  curves  drawn  by 
self-recording  pens  on  regular  ruled  paper.  The 


THE   SILENT  BULLET  33 

student  had  merely  noted  what  took  place  in  the 
lecture-room  as  corresponding  to  these  curves. 

"At  the  mention  of  the  noiseless  gun,"  said 
Kennedy,  bending  over  the  record,  while  the  stu- 
dent pointed  it  out  to  him  and  we  leaned  forward 
to  catch  his  words,  "I  find  that  the  curves  of  Miss 
La  Neige,  Mrs.  Parker,  and  Mr.  Downey  are  only 
so  far  from  normal  as  would  be  natural.  All  of 
them  were  witnessing  a  thing  for  the  first  time 
with  only  curiosity  and  no  fear.  The  curve  made 
by  Mr.  Bruce  shows  great  agitation  and — " 

I  heard  a  metallic  click  at  my  side  and  turned 
hastily.  It  was  Inspector  Barney  O'Connor,  who 
had  stepped  out  of  the  shadow  with  a  pair  of 
hand-cuffs. 

"James  Bruce,  you  are  under  arrest,"  he  said. 

There  flashed  on  my  mind,  and  I  think  on  the 
minds  of  some  of  the  others,  a  picture  of  another 
electrically  wired  chair. 


n 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  CRACKSMAN 

''I'M  willing  to  wager  you  a  box  of  cigars  that 
you  don't  know  the  most  fascinating  story  in 
your  own  paper  to-night,"  remarked  Kennedy, 
as  I  came  in  one  evening  with  the  four  or  five 
newspapers  I  was  in  the  habit  of  reading  to  see 
whether  they  had  beaten  the  Star  in  getting  any 
news  of  importance. 

"I'll  bet  I  do,"  I  said,  "for  I  was  one  of  about 
a  dozen  who  worked  it  up.  It 's  the  Shaw  murder 
trial.  There  isn't  another  that's  even  a  bad  sec- 
ond." 

"I  am  afraid  the  cigars  will  be  on  you,  Walter. 
Crowded  over  on  the  second  page  by  a  lot  of  stale 
sensation  that  everyone  has  read  for  the  fiftieth 
time,  now,  you  will  find  what  promises  to  be  a 
real  sensation,  a  curious  half-column  account  of 
the  sudden  death  of  John  G.  Fletcher." 

I  laughed.  "Craig,"  I  said,  "when  you  put 
up  a  simple  death  from  apoplexy  against  a  mur- 
der trial,  and  such  a  murder  trial, — well,  you  dis- 
appoint me — that's  all." 

"Is  it  a  simple  case  of  apoplexy?"  he  asked, 
pacing  up  and  down  the  room,  while  I  wondered 

34 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       35 

why  he  should  grow  excited  over  what  seemed  a 
very  ordinary  news  item,  after  all.  Then  he 
picked  up  the  paper  and  read  the  account  slowly 
aloud. 

JOHN   G.   FLETCHER,   STEEL  MAGNATE, 
DIES  SUDDENLY 

SAFE  OPEN  BUT  LARGE  SUM  OP  CASH  UNTOUCHED 

John  Graham  Fletcher,  the  aged  philanthropist  and 
steelmaker,  was  found  dead  in  his  library  this  morning 
at  his  home  at  Fletcherwood,  Great  Neck,  Long  Island. 
Strangely,  the  safe  in  the  library  in  which  he  kept  his 
papers  and  a  large  sum  of  cash  was  found  opened,  but 
as  far  as  could  be  learned  nothing  is  missing. 

It  had  always  been  Mr.  Fletcher's  custom  to  rise  at 
seven  o'clock.  This  morning  his  housekeeper  became 
alarmed  when  he  had  not  appeared  by  nine  o'clock. 
Listening  at  the  door,  she  heard  no  sound.  It  was  not 
locked,  and  on  entering  she  found  the  former  steel-mag- 
nate lying  lifeless  on  the  floor  between  his  bedroom  and 
the  library  adjoining.  His  personal  physician,  Dr. 
W.  C.  Bryant,  was  immediately  notified. 

Close  examination  of  the  body  revealed  that  his  face 
was  slightly  discoloured,  and  the  cause  of  death  waa 
given  by  the  physician  as  apoplexy.  He  had  evidently 
been  dead  about  eight  or  nine  hours  when  discovered. 

Mr.  Fletcher  is  survived  by  a  nephew,  John  G. 
Fletcher,  II.,  who  is  the  Blake  professor  of  bacteriology 
at  the  University,  and  by  a  grandniece,  Miss  Helen 
Bond.  Professor  Fletcher  was  informed  of  the  sad  oc- 
currence shortly  after  leaving  a  class  this  morning  and 


36  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

hurried  out  to  Fletcherwood.  He  would  make  no  state- 
ment other  than  that  he  was  inexpressibly  shocked.  Miss 
Bond,  who  has  for  several  years  resided  with  relatives, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Francis  Greene  of  Little  Neck,  is  prostrated 
by  the  shock. 

" Walter/'  added  Kennedy,  as  he  laid  down  the 
paper  and,  without  any  more  sparring,  came  di- 
rectly to  the  point,  "there  was  something  missing 
from  that  safe." 

I  had  no  need  to  express  the  interest  I  now 
really  felt,  and  Kennedy  hastened  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  it. 

"Just  before  you  came  in,"  he  continued, 
"Jack  Fletcher  called  me  up  from  Great  Neck. 
You  probably  don't  know  it,  but  it  has  been  priv- 
ately reported  in  the  inner  circle  of  the  Univer- 
sity that  old  Fletcher  was  to  leave  the  bulk  of  his 
fortune  to  found  a  great  school  of  preventive 
medicine,  and  that  the  only  proviso  was  that  his 
nephew  should  be  dean  of  the  school.  The  pro- 
fessor told  me  over  the  wire  that  the  will  was 
missing  from  the  safe,  and  that  it  was  the  only 
thing  missing.  From  his  excitement  I  judge 
that  there  is  more  to  the  story  than  he  cared  to 
tell  over  the  'phone.  He  said  his  car  was  on  the 
way  to  the  city,  and  he  asked  if  I  wouldn't  come 
and  help  him — he  wouldn't  say  how.  Now,  I 
know  him  pretty  well,  and  I'm  going  to  ask  you 
to  come  along,  Walter,  for  the  express  purpose 
of  keeping  this  thing  out  of  the  newspapers — 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       37 

understand? — until  we  get  to  the  bottom  of  it." 

A  few  minutes  later  the  telephone  rang  and  the 
hall-boy  announced  that  the  car  was  waiting. 
We  hurried  down  to  it;  the  chauffeur  lounged 
down  carelessly  into  his  seat  and  we  were  off 
across  the  city  and  river  and  out  on  the  road  to 
Great  Neck  with  amazing  speed. 

Already  I  began  to  feel  something  of  Ken- 
nedy's zest  for  the  adventure.  I  found  myself 
half  a  dozen  times  on  the  point  of  hazarding  a 
suspicion,  only  to  relapse  again  into  silence  at 
the  inscrutable  look  on  Kennedy's  face.  What 
was  the  mystery  that  awaited  us  in  the  great 
lonely  house  on  Long  Island? 

We  found  Fletcherwood  a  splendid  estate  di- 
rectly on  the  bay,  with  a  long  drive-way  leading 
up  to  the  door.  Professor  Fletcher  met  us  at 
the  porte  cochere,  and  I  was  glad  to  note  that, 
far  from  taking  me  as  an  intruder,  he  seemed 
rather  relieved  that  someone  who  understood  the 
ways  of  the  newspapers  could  stand  between  him 
and  any  reporters  who  might  possibly  drop  in. 

He  ushered  us  directly  into  the  library  and 
closed  the  door.  It  seemed  as  if  he  could  scarcely 
wait  to  tell  his  story. 

"Kennedy,"  he  began,  almost  trembling  with 
excitement,  "look  at  that  safe  door." 

We  looked.  It  had  been  drilled  through  in  sucK 
a  way  as  to  break  the  combination.  It  was  a 
heavy  door,  closely  fitting,  and  it  was  the  best 


38  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

kind  of  small  safe  that  the  state  of  the  art  had 
produced.  Yet  clearly  it  had  been  tampered  with, 
and  successfully.  Who  was  this  scientific  cracks- 
man who  had  apparently  accomplished  the  im- 
possible? It  was  no  ordinary  hand  and  brain 
which  had  executed  this  "job." 

Fletcher  swung  the  door  wide,  and  pointed  to 
a  little  compartment  inside,  whose  steel  door  had 
been  jimmied  open.  Then  out  of  it  he  carefully 
lifted  a  steel  box  and  deposited  it  on  the  library 
table. 

"I  suppose  everybody  has  been  handling  that 
box?"  asked  Craig  quickly. 

A  smile  flitted  across  Fletcher's  features.  "I 
thought  of  that,  Kennedy,"  he  said.  "I  remem- 
bered what  you  once  told  me  about  finger-prints. 
Only  myself  has  touched  it,  and  I  was  careful  to 
take  hold  of  it  only  on  the  sides.  The  will  was 
placed  in  this  box,  and  the  key  to  the  box  was 
usually  in  the  lock.  Well,  the  will  is  gone. 
That 's  all ;  nothing  else  was  touched.  But  for  the 
life  of  me  I  can't  find  a  mark  on  the  box,  not  a 
finger-mark.  Now  on  a  hot  and  humid  summer 
night  like  last  night  I  should  say  it  was  pretty 
likely  that  anyone  touching  this  metal  box  would 
have  left  finger-marks.  Shouldn't  you  think  so, 
Kennedy?" 

Kennedy  nodded  and  continued  to  examine  the 
place  where  the  compartment  had  been  jimmied. 
A  low  whistle  aroused  us.  Coming  over  to  the 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CEACKSMAN       39 

table,  Craig  tore  a  white  sheet  of  paper  off  a  pad 
lying  there  and  deposited  a  couple  of  small  par- 
ticles on  it. 

"I  found  them  sticking  on  the  jagged  edges  of 
the  steel  where  it  had  been  forced,*'  he  said. 
Then  he  whipped  out  a  pocket  magnifying-glass. 
"Not  from  a  rubber  glove,"  he  commented  half 
to  himself.  "By  Jove,  one  side  of  them  shows 
lines  that  look  as  if  they  were  the  lines  on  a  per- 
son's fingers,  and  the  other  side  is  perfectly 
smooth.  There's  not  a  chance  of  using  them  as 
a  clue,  except — well,  I  didn't  know  criminals  in 
America  knew  that  stunt." 

"What  stunt?" 

"Why,  you  know  how  keen  the  new  detectives 
are  on  the  finger-print  system?  Well,  the  first 
thing  some  of  the  up-to-date  criminals  in  Europe 
did  was  to  wear  rubber  gloves  so  that  they  would 
leave  no  prints.  But  you  can't  work  very  well 
with  rubber  gloves.  Last  fall  in  Paris  I  heard 
of  a  fellow  who  had  given  the  police  a  lot  of 
trouble.  He  never  left  a  mark,  or  at  least  it  was 
no  good  if  he  did.  He  painted  his  hands  lightly 
with  a  liquid  rubber  which  he  had  invented  him- 
self. It  did  all  that  rubber  gloves  would  do  and 
yet  left  him  the  free  use  of  his  fingers  with  prac- 
tically the  same  keenness  of  touch.  Fletcher, 
whatever  is  at  the  bottom  of  this  affair,  I  feel 
sure  right  now  that  you  have  to  deal  with  no  or- 
dinary criminal." 


40  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"Do  yon  suppose  there  are  any  relatives  be- 
sides those  we  know  of?"  I  asked  Kennedy  when 
Fletcher  had  left  to  summon  the  servants. 

"No,"  he  replied,  "I  think  not.  Fletcher  and 
Helen  Bond,  his  second  cousin,  to  whom  he  is  en- 
gaged, are  the  only  two." 

Kennedy  continued  to  study  the  library.  He 
walked  in  and  out  of  the  doors  and  examined  the 
windows  and  viewed  the  safe  from  all  angles. 
"The  old  gentleman's  bedroom  is  here,"  he  said, 
indicating  a  door.  "Now  a  good  smart  noise  or 
perhaps  even  a  light  shining  through  the  transom 
from  the  library  might  arouse  him.  Suppose  he 
woke  up  suddenly  and  entered  by  this  door.  He 
would  see  the  thief  at  work  on  the  safe.  Yes, 
that  part  of  reconstructing  the  story  is  simple. 
But  who  was  the  intruder  ? ' ' 

Just  then  Fletcher  returned  with  the  servants. 
The  questioning  was  long  and  tedious,  and  devel- 
oped nothing  except  that  the  butler  admitted  that 
he  was  uncertain  whether  the  windows  in  the  li- 
brary were  locked.  The  gardener  was  very  ob- 
tuse, but  finally  contributed  one  possibly  impor- 
tant fact.  He  had  noted  in  the  morning  that  the 
back  gate,  leading  into  a  disused  road  closer  to 
the  bay  than  the  main  highway  in  front  of  the 
house,  was  open.  It  was  rarely  used,  and  was 
kept  closed  only  by  an  ordinary  hook.  Whoever 
had  opened  it  had  evidently  forgotten  to  hook  it. 
He  had  thought  it  strange  that  it  was  unhooked, 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       41 

and  in  closing  it  he  had  noticed  in  the  mud  of  the 
roadway  marks  that  seemed  to  indicate  that  an 
automobile  had  stood  there. 

After  the  servants  had  gone,  Fletcher  asked 
us  to  excuse  him  for  a  while,  as  he  wished  to  run 
over  to  the  Greenes',  who  lived  across  the  bay. 
Miss  Bond  was  completely  prostrated  by  the 
death  of  her  uncle,  he  said,  and  was  in  an  ex- 
tremely nervous  condition.  Meanwhile  if  we 
found  any  need  of  a  machine  we  might  use  his 
uncle's,  or  in  fact  anything  around  the  place. 

"Walter,"  said  Craig,  when  Fletcher  had  gone, 
"I  want  to  run  back  to  town  to-night,  and  I  have 
something  I'd  like  to  have  you  do,  too." 

We  were  soon  speeding  back  along  the  splen- 
did road  to  Long  Island  City,  while  he  laid  out 
our  programme. 

"You  go  down  to  the  Star  office,"  he  said,  "and1 
look  through  all  the  clippings  on  the  whole 
Fletcher  family.  Get  a  complete  story  of  the  life 
of  Helen  Bond,  too — what  she  has  done  in  society, 
with  whom  she  has  been  seen  mostly,  whether 
she  has  made  any  trips  abroad,  and  whether  she 
has  ever  been  engaged — you  know,  anything  likely 
to  be  significant.  I'm  going  up  to  the  apartment 
to  get  my  camera  and  then  to  the  laboratory  to  get 
some  rather  bulky  paraphernalia  I  want  to  take 
out  to  Fletcherwood.  Meet  me  at  the  Columbus 
Circle  station  at,  say  half-past-ten." 

So  we  separated.    My  search  revealed  the  fact 


42  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

that  Miss  Bond  had  always  been  intimate  with 
the  ultra-fashionable  set,  had  spent  last  summer 
in  Europe,  a  good  part  of  the  time  in  Switzerland 
and  Paris  with  the  Greenes.  As  far  as  I  could 
find  out  she  had  never  been  reported  engaged, 
but  plenty  of  fortunes  as  well  as  foreign  titles 
had  been  flitting  about  the  ward  of  the  steel- 
magnate. 

Craig  and  I  met  at  the  appointed  time.  He 
had  a  lot  of  paraphernalia  with  him,  and  it  did 
not  add  to  our  comfort  as  we  sped  back,  but  it 
wasn't  much  over  half  an  hour  before  we  again 
found  ourselves  nearing  Great  Neck. 

Instead  of  going  directly  back  to  Fletcherwood, 
however,  Craig  had  told  the  chauffeur  to  stop  at 
the  plant  of  the  local  electric  light  and  power 
company,  where  he  asked  if  he  might  see  the  rec- 
ord of  the  amount  of  current  used  the  night  be- 
fore. 

The  curve  sprawled  across  the  ruled  surface 
of  the  sheet  by  the  automatic  registering-needle 
was  irregular,  showing  the  ups  and  downs  of  the 
current,  rising  sharply  from  sundown  and  grad- 
ually declining  after  nine  o'clock,  as  the  lights 
went  out.  Somewhere  between  eleven  and  twelve 
o'clock,  however,  the  irregular  fall  of  the 
curve  was  broken  by  a  quite  noticeable  upward 
twist. 

Craig  asked  the  men  if  that  usually  happened. 
They  were  quite  sure  that  the  curve  as  a  rule 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       43 

went  gradually  down  until  twelve  o'clock,  when 
the  power  was  shut  off.  But  they  did  not  see 
anything  remarkable  in  it.  "Oh,  I  suppose  some 
of  the  big  houses  had  guests,"  volunteered  the 
foreman,  "and  just  to  show  off  the  place  per- 
haps they  turned  on  all  the  lights.  I  don't  know, 
sir,  what  it  was,  but  it  couldn't  have  been  a  heavy 
drain,  or  we  would  have  noticed  it  at  the  time, 
and  the  lights  would  all  have  been  dim." 

"Well,"  said  Craig,  "just  watch  and  see  if  it 
occurs  again  to-night  about  the  same  time." 

"All  right,  sir." 

"And  when  you  close  down  the  plant  for  the 
night,  will  you  bring  the  record  card  up  to 
Fletcherwood  ? "  asked  Craig,  slipping  a  bill  into 
the  pocket  of  the  foreman's  shirt. 

"I  will,  and  thank  you,  sir." 

It  was  nearly  half -past  eleven  when  Craig  had 
got  his  apparatus  set  up  in  the  library  at  Fletcher- 
wood.  Then  he  unscrewed  all  the  bulbs  from 
the  chandelier  in  the  library  and  attached  in  their 
places  connections  with  the  usual  green  silk-cov- 
ered flexible  wire  rope.  These  were  then  joined 
up  to  a  little  instrument  which  to  me  looked  like 
a  drill.  Next  he  muffled  the  drill  with  a  wad  of 
felt  and  applied  it  to  the  safe  door. 

I  could  hear  the  dull  tat-tat  of  the  drill.  Going 
into  the  bedroom  and  closing  the  door,  I  found 
that  it  was  still  audible  to  me,  but  an  old  man, 
inclined  to  deafness  and  asleep,  would  scarcely 


44  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

have  been  awakened  by  it.  In  about  ten  minutes 
Craig  displayed  a  neat  little  hole  in  the  safe  door 
opposite  the  one  made  by  the  cracksman  in  the 
combination. 

"I'm  glad  you're  honest,"  I  said,  "or  else  we 
might  be  afraid  of  you — perhaps  even  make  you 
prove  an  alibi  for  last  night's  job!" 

He  ignored  my  bantering  and  said  in  a  tone 
such  as  he  might  have  used  before  a  class  of  stu- 
dents in  the  gentle  art  of  scientific  safe-cracking: 
"Now  if  the  power  company's  curve  is  just  the 
same  to-night  as  last  night,  that  will  show  how 
the  thing  was  done.  I  wanted  to  be  sure  of  it, 
so  I  thought  I'd  try  this  apparatus  which  I  smug- 
gled in  from  Paris  last  year.  I  believe  the  old 
man  happened  to  be  wakeful  and  heard  it." 

Then  he  pried  off  the  door  of  the  interior  com- 
partment which  had  been  jimmied  open.  "Per- 
haps we  may  learn  something  by  looking  at  this 
door  and  studying  the  marks  left  by  the  jimmy, 
by  means  of  this  new  instrument  of  mine,"  he 
said. 

On  the  library  table  he  fastened  an  arrange- 
ment with  two  upright  posts  supporting  a  dial 
which  he  called  a  "dynamometer."  The  up- 
rights were  braced  in  the  back,  and  the  whole 
thing  reminded  me  of  a  miniature  guillotine. 

"This  is  my  mechanical  detective,"  said  Craig 
proudly.  "It  was  devised  by  Bertillon  himself, 
and  he  personally  gave  me  permission  to  copy 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       45 

his  own  machine.  You  see,  it  is  devised  to  meas- 
ure pressure.  Now  let's  take  an  ordinary  jimmy 
and  see  just  how  much  pressure  it  takes  to  dupli' 
cate  those  marks  on  this  door." 

Craig  laid  the  piece  of  steel  on  the  dynamo- 
meter in  the  position  it  had  occupied  in  the  safe, 
and  braced  it  tightly.  Then  he  took  a  jimmy  and 
pressed  on  it  with  all  his  strength.  The  steel 
door  was  connected  with  the  indicator,  and  the 
needle  spun  around  until  it  indicated  a  pressure 
such  as  only  a  strong  man  could  have  exerted. 
Comparing  the  marks  made  in  the  steel  in  the 
experiment  and  by  the  safe-cracker,  it  was  evi- 
dent that  no  such  pressure  had  been  necessary. 
Apparently  the  lock  on  the  door  was  only  a 
trifling  affair,  and  the  steel  itself  was  not  very 
tough.  The  safe-makers  had  relied  on  the  first 
line  of  defence  to  repel  attack. 

Craig  tried  again  and  again,  each  time  using 
less  force.  At  last  he  got  a  mark  just  about  sim- 
ilar to  the  original  marks  on  the  steel. 

"Well,  well,  what  do  you  think  of  that!"  he 
exclaimed  reflectively.  "A  child  could  have  done 
that  part  of  the  job." 

Just  then  the  lights  went  off  for  the  night. 
Craig  lighted  the  oil-lamp,  and  sat  in  silence  un- 
til the  electric  light  plant  foreman  appeared  with 
the  card-record,  which  showed  a  curve  practically 
identical  with  that  of  the  night  before. 

A  few  moments  later  Professor  Fletcher's  ma- 


46  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

chine  came  up  the  driveway,  and  he  joined  us 
with  a  worried  and  preoccupied  look  on  his  face 
that  he  could  not  conceal.  ' '  She 's  terribly  broken 
up  by  the  suddenness  of  it  all, ' '  he  murmured  as 
he  sank  into  an  armchair.  "The  shock  has  been 
too  much  for  her.  In  fact,  I  hadn't  the  heart  to 
tell  her  anything  about  the  robbery,  poor  girl." 
Then  in  a  moment  he  asked,  "Any  more  clues  yet, 
Kennedy?" 

"Well,  nothing  of  first  importance.  I  have 
only  been  trying  to  reconstruct  the  story  of  the 
robbery  so  that  I  can  reason  out  a  motive  and  a 
few  details ;  then  when  the  real  clues  come  along 
we  won't  have  so  much  ground  to  cover.  The 
cracksman  was  certainly  clever.  He  used  an 
electric  drill  to  break  the  combination  and  ran  it 
by  the  electric  light  current." 

"Whew!"  exclaimed  the  professor,  "is  that 
so?  He  must  have  been  above  the  average. 
That's  interesting." 

"By  the  way,  Fletcher,"  said  Kennedy,  "I 
wish  you  would  introduce  me  to  your  fiancee  to- 
morrow. I  would  like  to  know  her." 

"Gladly,"  Fletcher  replied,  "only  you  must 
be  careful  what  you  talk  about.  Eemember,  the 
death  of  uncle  has  been  quite  a  shock  to  her — he 
was  her  only  relative  besides  myself." 

"I  will,"  promised  Kennedy,  "and  by  the  way, 
she  may  think  it  strange  that  I'm  out  here  at  a 
time  like  this.  Perhaps  you  had  better  tell  her 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       47 

I'm  a  nerve  specialist  or  something  of  that 
sort — anything  not  to  connect  me  with  the 
robbery,  which  you  say  you  haven't  told  her 
about." 

The  next  morning  found  Kennedy  out  bright 
and  early,  for  he  had  not  had  a  very  good  chance 
to  do  anything  during  the  night  except  recon- 
struct the  details.  He  was  now  down  by  the  back 
gate  with  his  camera,  where  I  found  him  turning 
it  end-down  and  photographing  the  road.  To- 
gether we  made  a  thorough  search  of  the  woods 
and  the  road  about  the  gate,  but  could  discover 
absolutely  nothing. 

After  breakfast  I  improvised  a  dark  room  and 
developed  the  films,  while  Craig  went  down  the 
back  lane  along  the  shore  "looking  for  clues," 
as  he  said  briefly.  Toward  noon  he  returned, 
and  I  could  see  that  he  was  in  a  brown  study. 
So  I  said  nothing,  but  handed  him  the  photo- 
graphs of  the  road.  He  took  them  and  laid  them 
down  in  a  long  line  on  the  library  floor.  They 
seemed  to  consist  of  little  ridges  of  dirt  on  either 
side  of  a  series  of  regular  round  spots,  some  of 
the  spots  very  clear  and  distinct  on  the  sides, 
others  quite  obscure  in  the  centre.  Now  and  then 
where  you  would  expect  to  see  one  of  the  spots, 
just  for  the  symmetry  of  the  thing,  it  was  miss- 
ing. As  I  looked  at  the  line  of  photographs  on 
the  floor  I  saw  that  they  were  a  photograph  of  the 
track  made  by  the  tire  of  an  automobile,  and 


48  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

I  suddenly  recalled  what  the  gardener  had 
said. 

Next  Craig  produced  the  results  of  his  morn- 
ing's work,  which  consisted  of  several  dozen 
sheets  of  white  paper,  carefully  separated  into 
three  bundles.  These  he  also  laid  down  in  long 
lines  on  the  floor,  each  package  in  a  separate  line. 
Then  I  began  to  realise  what  he  was  doing,  and 
became  fascinated  in  watching  him  on  his  hands 
and  knees  eagerly  scanning  the  papers  and  com- 
paring them  with  the  photographs.  At  last  he 
gathered  up  two  of  the  sets  of  papers  very  de- 
cisively and  threw  them  away.  Then  he  shifted 
the  third  set  a  bit,  and  laid  it  closely  parallel  to 
the  photographs. 

"Look  at  these,  Walter, "  he  said.  "Now  take 
this  deep  and  sharp  indentation.  Well,  there's  a 
corresponding  one  in  the  photograph.  So  you 
can  pick  them  out  one  for  another.  Now  here's 
one  missing  altogether  on  the  paper.  So  it  is  in 
the  photograph." 

Almost  like  a  schoolboy  in  his  glee,  he  was  com- 
paring the  little  round  circles  made  by  the  metal 
insertions  in  an  "anti-skid"  automobile  tire. 
Time  and  again  I  had  seen  imprints  like  that  left 
in  the  dust  and  grease  of  an  asphalted  street  or 
the  mud  of  a  road.  It  had  never  occurred  to  me 
that  they  might  be  used  in  any  way.  Yet  here 
Craig  was,  calmly  tracing  out  the  similarity  be- 
fore my  very  eyes,  identifying  the  marks  made 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       49 

in  the  photograph  with  the  prints  left  on  the  bits 
of  paper. 

As  I  followed  him,  I  had  a  most  curious  feeling 
of  admiration  for  his  genius.  " Craig,"  I  cried, 
"that's  the  thumb-print  of  an  automobile." 

" There  speaks  the  yellow  journalist,"  he  an- 
swered merrily.  "  *  Thumb  Print  System  Ap- 
plied to  Motor  Cars' — I  can  see  the  Sunday  fea- 
ture story  you  have  in  your  mind  with  that  head- 
line already.  Yes,  Walter,  that's  precisely  what 
this  is.  The  Berlin  police  have  used  it  a  number 
of  times  with  the  most  startling  results." 

"But,  Craig,"  I  exclaimed  suddenly,  "the 
paper  prints,  where  did  you  get  them?  What 
machine  is  it?" 

"It's  one  not  very  far  from  here,"  he  an- 
swered sententiously,  and  I  saw  he  would  say 
nothing  more  that  might  fix  a  false  suspicion  on 
anyone.  Still,  my  curiosity  was  so  great  that  if 
there  had  been  an  opportunity  I  certainly  should 
have  tried  out  his  plan  on  all  the  cars  in  the 
Fletcher  garage. 

Kennedy  would  say  nothing  more,  and  we  ate 
our  luncheon  in  silence.  Fletcher,  who  had  de- 
cided to  lunch  with  the  Greenes,  called  Kennedy 
up  on  the  telephone  to  tell  him  it  would  be  all 
right  for  him  to  call  on  Miss  Bond  later  in  the 
afternoon. 

"And  I  may  bring  over  the  apparatus  I  once 
described  to  you  to  determine  just  what  her  nerv- 


50  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

ous  condition  is?"  he  asked.  Apparently  the  an- 
swer was  yes,  for  Kennedy  hung  up  the  receiver 
with  a  satisfied,  "  Good-bye. " 

"  Walter,  I  want  you  to  come  along  with  me 
this  afternoon  as  my  assistant.  Remember  I'm 
now  Dr.  Kennedy,  the  nerve  specialist,  and 
you  are  Dr.  Jameson,  my  colleague,  and  we  are 
to  be  in  consultation  on  a  most  important 
case." 

4 'Do  you  think  that's  fair?"  I  asked  hotly— 
"to  take  that  girl  off  her  guard,  to  insinuate 
yourself  into  her  confidence  as  a  medical  adviser, 
and  worm  out  of  her  some  kind  of  fact  incrimi- 
nating someone?  I  suppose  that's  your  plan, 
and  I  don't  like  the  ethics,  or  rather  the  lack  of 
ethics,  of  the  thing." 

"Now  think  a  minute,  Walter.  Perhaps  I  am 
wrong;  I  don't  know.  Certainly  I  feel  that  the 
end  will  justify  the  means.  I  have  an  idea  that 
I  can  get  from  Miss  Bond  the  only  clue  that  I 
need,  one  that  will  lead  straight  to  the  criminal. 
Who  knows?  I  have  a  suspicion  that  the  thing 
I'm  going  to  do  is  the  highest  form  of  your  so- 
called  ethics.  If  what  Fletcher  tells  us  is  true 
that  girl  is  going  insane  over  this  thing.  Why 
should  she  be  so  shocked  over  the  death  of  an 
uncle  she  did  not  live  with  ?  I  tell  you  she  knows 
something  about  this  case  that  it  is  necessary  for 
us  to  know,  too.  If  she  doesn't  tell  someone,  it 
will  eat  her  mind  out.  I'll  add  a  dinner  to  the 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       51 

box  of  cigars  we  have  already  bet  on  this  case 
that  what  I'm  going  to  do  is  for  the  best — for 
her  best." 

Again  I  yielded,  for  I  was  coming  to  have  more 
and  more  faith  in  the  old  Kennedy  I  had  seen 
made  over  into  a  first-class  detective,  and  to- 
gether we  started  for  the  Greenes',  Craig  carry- 
ing something  in  one  of  those  long  black  hand- 
bags which  physicians  use. 

Fletcher  met  us  on  the  driveway.  He  seemed 
to  be  very  much  affected,  for  his  face  was  drawn, 
and  he  shifted  from  one  position  to  another  nerv- 
ously, from  which  we  inferred  that  Miss  Bond 
was  feeling  worse.  It  was  late  afternoon,  almost 
verging  on  twilight,  as  he  led  us  through  the  re- 
ception-hall and  thence  onto  a  long  porch  over- 
looking the  bay  and  redolent  with  honeysuckle. 

Miss  Bond  was  half  reclining  in  a  wicker  chair 
as  we  entered.  She  started  to  rise  to  greet  us, 
but  Fletcher  gently  restrained  her,  saying,  as  he 
introduced  us,  that  he  guessed  the  doctors  would 
pardon  any  informality  from  an  invalid. 

Fletcher  was  a  pretty  fine  fellow,  and  I  had 
come  to  like  him;  but  I  soon  found  myself  won- 
dering what  he  had  ever  done  to  deserve  winning 
such  a  girl  as  Helen  Bond.  She  was  what  I 
should  describe  as  the  ideal  type  of  "new"  wo- 
man,— tall  and  athletic,  yet  without  any  affecta- 
tion of  mannishness.  The  very  first  thought  that 
struck  me  was  the  incongruousness  of  a  girl  of 


52  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

her  type  suffering  from  an  attack  of  "nerves," 
and  I  felt  sure  it  must  be  as  Craig  had  said,  that 
she  was  concealing  a  secret  that  was  having  a 
terrible  effect  on  her.  A  casual  glance  might  not 
have  betrayed  the  true  state  of  her  feelings,  for 
her  dark  hair  and  large  brown  eyes  and  the  tan 
of  many  suns  on  her  face  and  arms  betokened 
anything  but  the  neurasthenic.  One  felt  instinct- 
ively that  she  was,  with  all  her  athletic  grace, 
primarily  a  womanly  woman. 

The  sun  sinking  toward  the  hills  across  the  bay 
softened  the  brown  of  her  skin  and,  as  I  observed 
by  watching  her  closely,  served  partially  to  con- 
ceal the  nervousness  which  was  wholly  unnatural 
in  a  girl  of  such  poise.  When  she  smiled  there 
was  a  false  note  in  it;  it  was  forced  and  it  was 
sufficiently  evident  to  me  that  she  was  going 
through  a  mental  hell  of  conflicting  emotions  that 
would  have  killed  a  woman  of  less  self-control. 

I  felt  that  I  would  like  to  be  in  Fletcher's  shoes 
— doubly  so  when,  at  Kennedy's  request,  he  with- 
drew, leaving  me  to  witness  the  torture  of  a  wo- 
man of  such  fine  sensibilities,  already  hunted  re- 
morselessly by  her  own  thoughts. 

Still,  I  will  give  Kennedy  credit  for  a  tactful- 
ness  that  I  didn't  know  the  old  fellow  possessed. 
He  carried  through  the  preliminary  questions 
very  well  for  a  pseudo-doctor,  appealing  to  me  as 
his  assistant  on  inconsequential  things  that  en- 
abled me  to  "save  my  face"  perfectly.  When  he 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       53 

came  to  the  critical  moment  of  opening  the  black 
bag,  he  made  a  very  appropriate  and  easy  re- 
mark about  not  having  brought  any  sharp  shiny 
instruments  or  nasty  black  drugs. 

"All  I  wish  to  do,  Miss  Bond,  is  to  make  a  few 
simple  little  tests  of  your  nervous  condition. 
One  of  them  we  specialists  call  reaction  time,  and 
another  is  a  test  of  heart  action.  Neither  is  of 
any  seriousness  at  all,  so  I  beg  of  you  not  to  be- 
come excited,  for  the  chief  value  consists  in  hav- 
ing the  patient  perfectly  quiet  and  normal.  After 
they  are  over  I  think  I'll  know  whether  to  pre- 
scribe absolute  rest  or  a  visit  to  Newport. " 

She  smiled  languidly,  as  he  adjusted  a  long, 
tightly  fitting  rubber  glove  on  her  shapely  fore- 
arm and  then  encased  it  in  a  larger,  absolutely  in- 
flexible covering  of  leather.  Between  the  rubber 
glove  and  the  leather  covering  was  a  liquid  com- 
municating by  a  glass  tube  with  a  sort  of  dial. 
Craig  had  often  explained  to  me  how  the  pressure 
of  the  blood  was  registered  most  minutely  on  the 
dial,  showing  the  varied  emotions  as  keenly  as  if 
you  had  taken  a  peep  into  the  very  mind  of  the 
subject.  I  think  the  experimental  psychologists 
called  the  thing  a  "plethysmograph." 

Then  he  had  an  apparatus  which  measured 
"association  time."  The  essential  part  of  this  in- 
strument was  the  operation  of  a  very  delicate 
stop-watch,  and  this  duty  was  given  to  me.  It 
was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  measuring  the 


54  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

time  that  elapsed  between  Ms  questions  to  her 
and  her  answers,  while  he  recorded  the  actual 
questions  and  answers  and  noted  the  results 
which  I  worked  out.  Neither  of  us  was  unfa 
miliar  with  the  process,  for  when  we  were  in  coK 
lege  these  instruments  were  just  coming  into  uso 
in  America.  Kennedy  had  never  let  his  particu- 
lar branch  of  science  narrow  him,  but  had  mad<? 
a  practice  of  keeping  abreast  of  all  the  important* 
discoveries  and  methods  in  other  fields.  Besides, 
I  had  read  articles  about  the  chronoscope,  the 
plethysmograph,  the  sphygmograph,  and  others 
of  the  new  psychological  instruments.  Craig  car- 
ried it  off,  however,  as  if  he  did  that  sort  of  thing 
as  an  every-day  employment. 

"Now,  Miss  Bond,"  he  said,  and  his  voice  was 
so  reassuring  and  persuasive  that  I  could  see  she 
was  not  made  even  a  shade  more  nervous  by  our 
simple  preparations,  "the  game — it  is  just  like 
a  children's  parlour  game — is  just  this:  I  will 
say  a  word — take  'dog,'  for  instance.  You  are 
to  answer  back  immediately  the  first  word  that 
comes  into  your  mind  suggested  by  it — say  'cat.' 
I  will  say  'chain,'  for  example,  and  probably  you 
will  answer  'collar,'  and  so  on.  Do  you  catch  my 
meaning?  It  may  seem  ridiculous,  no  doubt,  but 
before  we  are  through  I  feel  sure  you'll  see  how 
valuable  such  a  test  is,  particularly  in  a  simple 
case  of  nervousness  such  as  yours." 

I  don't  think  she  found  any  sinister  interpreta- 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN      55 

tion  in  his  words,  but  I  did,  and  if  ever  I  wanted 
to  protest  it  was  then,  but  my  voice  seemed  to 
stick  in  my  throat. 

He  was  beginning.  It  was  clearly  up  to  me  to 
give  in  and  not  interfere.  As  closely  as  I  was 
able  I  kept  my  eyes  riveted  on  the  watch  and  other 
apparatus,  while  my  ears  and  heart  followed  with 
mingled  emotions  the  low,  musical  voice  of  the 
girl. 

I  will  not  give  all  the  test,  for  there  was  much 
of  it,  particularly  at  the  start,  that  was  in  reality 
valueless,  since  it  was  merely  leading  up  to  the 
" surprise  tests."  From  the  colourless  questions 
Kennedy  suddenly  changed.  It  was  done  in  an 
instant,  when  Miss  Bond  had  been  completely  dis- 
armed and  put  off  her  guard. 

" Night,"  said  Kennedy.  "Day,"  came  back 
the  reply  from  Miss  Bond. 

"Automobile."    "Horse." 

"Bay."    "Beach." 

"Road."    "Forest." 

"Gate."    "Fence." 

"Path."    "Shrubs." 

"Porch."    "House." 

Did  I  detect  or  imagine  a  faint  hesitation? 

"Window."    "Curtain." 

Yes,  it  was  plain  that  time.  But  the  words  fol- 
lowed one  another  in  quick  succession.  There 
was  no  rest.  She  had  no  chance  to  collect  her- 
self. I  noted  the  marked  difference  in  the  reac- 


56  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

tion  time  and,  in  my  sympathy,  damned  this  cold, 
scientific  third  degree. 

"Paris."    "France." 

"Quartier  Latin."    "Students." 

"Apaches."  Craig  gave  it  its  Gallicised  pro- 
nunciation, "Apash."  "Really,  Dr.  Kennedy," 
she  said,  "there  is  nothing  I  can  associate  with 
them — well,  yes,  les  vaclies,  I  believe.  You  had 
better  count  that  question  out.  I've  wasted  a 
good  many  seconds." 

"Very  well,  let  us  try  again,"  he  replied  with 
a  forced  unconcern,  though  the  answer  seemed  to 
interest  him,  for  "les  vaches"  meant  "the  cows," 
otherwise  known  as  the  police. 

No  lawyer  could  have  revelled  in  an  opportu- 
nity for  putting  leading  questions  more  ruthlessly 
than  did  Kennedy.  He  snapped  out  his  words 
sharply  and  unexpectedly. 

"Chandelier."    "Light." 

"Electric  light,"  he  emphasised.  "Broad- 
way, ' '  she  answered,  endeavouring  to  force  a  new 
association  of  ideas  to  replace  one  which  she 
strove  to  conceal. 

' '  Safe. "  "  Vaults. ' '  Out  of  the  corner  of  my 
eye  I  could  see  that  the  indicator  showed  a  tre- 
mendously increased  heart  action.  As  for  the 
reaction  time,  I  noted  that  it  was  growing  longer 
and  more  significant.  Remorselessly  he  pressed 
his  words  home.  Mentally  I  cursed  him. 

"Rubber."    "Tire." 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       57 

"Steel."    "Pittsburg,"  she  cried  at  random. 

"Strong-box,"  No  answer. 

"Lock."  Again  no  answer.  He  hurried  his 
words.  I  was  leaning  forward,  tense  with  excite- 
ment and  sympathy. 

"Key."  Silence  and  a  fluttering  of  the  blood- 
pressure  indicator. 

"Will." 

As  the  last  word  was  uttered  her  air  of  fright- 
ened defiance  was  swept  away.  With  a  cry  of 
anguish,  she  swayed  to  her  feet.  "No,  no,  doc- 
tor, you  must  not,  you  must  not,"  she  cried  with 
outstretched  arms.  "Why  do  you  pick  out  those 
words  of  all  others?  Can  it  be — "  If  I  had  not 
caught  her  I  believe  she  would  have  fainted. 

The  indicator  showed  a  heart  alternately 
throbbing  with  feverish  excitement  and  almost 
stopping  with  fear.  What  would  Kennedy  do 
next,  I  wondered,  determined  to  shut  him  off  as 
soon  as  I  possibly  could.  From  the  moment  I 
had  seen  her  I  had  been  under  her  spell.  Mine 
should  have  been  Fletcher's  place,  I  knew,  though 
I  cannot  but  say  that  I  felt  a  certain  grim  pleas- 
ure in  supporting  even  momentarily  such  a  wo- 
man in  her  time  of  need. 

"Can  it  be  that  you  have  guessed  what  no  one 
in  the  world,  no,  not  even  dear  old  Jack,  dreams? 
Oh,  I  shall  go  mad,  mad,  mad!" 

Kennedy  was  on  his  feet  in  an  instant,  advanc- 
ing toward  her.  The  look  in  his  eyes  was  answer 


58  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

enough  for  her.  She  knew  that  he  knew,  and  she 
paled  and  shuddered,  shrinking  away  from  him. 

"Miss  Bond,"  he  said  in  a  voice  that  forced 
attention — it  was  low  and  vibrating  with  feeling 
— "Miss  Bond,  have  you  ever  told  a  lie  to  shield 
a  friend?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  her  eyes  meeting  his. 

"So  can  I,"  came  back  the  same  tense  voice, 
"when  I  know  the  truth  about  that  friend." 

Then  for  the  first  time  tears  came  in  a  storm. 
Her  breath  was  quick  and  feverish.  "No  onel 
will  ever  believe,  no  one  will  understand.  They 
will  say  that  I  killed  him,  that  I  murdered  him." 

Through  it  all  I  stood  almost  speechless,  puz- 
zled. What  did  it  all  mean? 

"No,"  said  Kennedy,  "no,  for  they  will  never 
know  of  it." 

"Never  know?" 

"Never — if  in  the  end  justice  is  done.  Have 
you  the  will?  Or  did  you  destroy  it?" 

It  was  a  bold  stroke. 

"Yes.  No.  Here  it  is.  How  could  I  de- 
stroy it,  even  though  it  was  burning  out  my  very 
soul?" 

She  literally  tore  the  paper  from  the  bosom 
of  her  dress  and  cast  it  from  her  in  horror  and 
terror. 

Kennedy  picked  it  up,  opened  it,  and  glanced 
hurriedly  through  it.  "Miss  Bond,"  he  said, 
"Jack  shall  never  know  a  word  of  this.  I  shall 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       59 

tell  him  that  the  will  has  been  found  unexpect- 
edly in  John  Fletcher's  desk  among  some  other 
papers.  Walter,  swear  on  your  honour  as  a  gen- 
tleman that  this  will  was  found  in  old  Fletcher's 
desk." 

"Dr.  Kennedy,  how  can  I  ever  thank  you?"  she 
exclaimed,  sinking  wearily  down  into  a  chair 
and  pressing  her  hands  to  her  throbbing  fore- 
head. 

"By  telling  me  just  how  you  came  by  this  will, 
so  that  when  you  and  Fletcher  are  married  I  may 
be  as  good  a  friend,  without  suspicion,  to  you  as 
I  am  to  him.  I  think  a  full  confession  would  do 
you  good,  Miss  Bond.  Would  you  prefer  to  have 
Dr.  Jameson  not  hear  it?" 

"No,  he  may  stay." 

"This  much  I  know,  Miss  Bond.  Last  summer 
in  Paris  with  the  Greenes  you  must  have  chanced 
to  hear  of  Pillard,  the  Apache,  one  of  the  most 
noted  cracksmen  the  world  has  ever  produced. 
You  sought  him  out.  He  taught  you  how  to 
paint  your  fingers  with  a  rubber  composition, 
how  to  use  an  electric  drill,  how  to  use  the  old- 
fashioned  jimmy.  You  went  down  to  Fletcher- 
wood  by  the  back  road  about  a  quarter  after 
eleven  the  night  of  the  robbery  in  the  Greenes' 
little  electric  runabout.  You  entered  the  library 
by  an  unlocked  window,  you  coupled  your  drill  to 
the  electric  light  connections  of  the  chandelier. 
You  had  to  work  quickly,  for  the  power  would 


60  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

go  off  at  midnight,  yet  you  could  not  do  the  job 
later,  when  they  were  sleeping  more  soundly,  for 
the  very  same  reason." 

It  was  uncanny  as  Kennedy  rushed  along  in  his 
reconstruction  of  the  scene,  almost  unbelievable. 
The  girl  watched  him,  fascinated. 

* '  John  Fletcher  was  wakeful  that  night.  Some- 
how or  other  he  heard  you  at  work.  He  entered 
the  library  and,  by  the  light  streaming  from  his 
bedroom,  he  saw  who  it  was.  In  anger  he  must 
have  addressed  you,  and  his  passion  got  the  bet- 
ter of  his  age — he  fell  suddenly  on  the  floor  with 
a  stroke  of  apoplexy.  As  you  bent  over  him  he 
died.  But  why  did  you  ever  attempt  so  foolish 
an  undertaking?  Didn't  you  know  that  other 
people  knew  of  the  will  and  its  terms,  that  you 
were  sure  to  be  traced  out  in  the  end,  if  not  by 
friends,  by  foes?  How  did  you  suppose  you 
could  profit  by  destroying  the  will,  of  which 
others  knew  the  provisions?" 

Any  other  woman  than  Helen  Bond  would  have 
been  hysterical  long  before  Kennedy  had  finished 
pressing  home  remorselessly  one  fact  after  an- 
other of  her  story.  But,  with  her,  the  relief  now 
after  the  tension  of  many  hours  of  concealment 
seemed  to  nerve  her  to  go  to  the  end  and  tell  the 
truth. 

What  was  it?  Had  she  some  secret  lover  for 
whom  she  had  dared  all  to  secure  the  family  for- 
tune? Or  was  she  shielding  someone  dearer  to 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       61 

her  than  her  own  reputation?  Why  had  Ken- 
nedy made  Fletcher  withdraw? 

Her  eyes  dropped  and  her  breast  rose  and  fell 
with  suppressed  emotion.  Yet  I  was  hardly  pre- 
pared for  her  reply  when  at  last  she  slowly  raised 
her  head  and  looked  us  calmly  in  the  face. 

"I  did  it  because  I  loved  Jack." 

Neither  of  us  spoke.  I,  at  least,  had  fallen 
completely  under  the  spell  of  this  masterful  wo- 
man. Eight  or  wrong,  I  could  not  restrain  a 
feeling  of  admiration  and  amazement. 

"Yes,"  she  said  as  her  voice  thrilled  with  emo- 
tion, "strange  as  it  may  sound  to  you,  it  was  not 
love  of  self  that  made  me  do  it.  I  was,  I  am 
madly  in  love  with  Jack.  No  other  man  has 
ever  inspired  such  respect  and  love  as  he  has. 
His  work  in  the  university  I  have  fairly  gloated 
over.  And  yet — and  yet,  Dr.  Kennedy,  can  you 
not  see  that  I  am  different  from  Jack?  What 
would  I  do  with  the  income  of  the  wife  of  even 
the  dean  of  the  new  school?  The  annuity  pro- 
vided for  me  in  that  will  is  paltry.  I  need  mil- 
lions. From  the  tiniest  baby  I  have  been  reared 
that  way.  I  have  always  expected  this  fortune. 
I  have  been  given  everything  I  wanted.  But  it 
is  different  when  one  is  married — you  must  have 
your  own  money.  I  need  a  fortune,  for  then  I 
could  have  the  town  house,  the  country  house, 
the  yacht,  the  motors,  the  clothes,  the  servants 
that  I  need — they  are  as  much  a  part  of  my  life 


62  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

as  your  profession  is  of  yours.  I  must  have 
them. 

"And  now  it  was  all  to  slip  from  my  hands. 
True,  it  was  to  go  in  such  a  way  by  this  last  will 
as  to  make  Jack  happy  in  his  new  school.  I 
could  have  let  that  go,  if  that  was  all.  There  are 
other  fortunes  that  have  been  laid  at  my  feet. 
But  I  wanted  Jack,  and  I  knew  Jack  wanted  me. 
Dear  boy,  he  never  could  realise  how  utterly  un- 
happy intellectual  poverty  would  have  made  me 
and  how  my  unhappiness  would  have  reacted  on 
him  in  the  end.  In  reality  this  great  and  benefi- 
cent philanthropy  was  finally  to  blight  both  our 
love  and  our  lives. 

"What  was  I  to  do?  Stand  by  and  see  my  life 
and  my  love  ruined  or  refuse  Jack  for  the  for- 
tune of  a  man  I  did  not  love?  Helen  Bond  is  not 
that  kind  of  a  woman,  I  said  to  myself.  I  con- 
sulted the  greatest  lawyer  I  knew.  I  put  a 
hypothetical  case  to  him,  and  asked  his  opinion 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  him  believe  he  was  ad- 
vising me  how  to  make  an  unbreakable  will.  He 
told  me  of  provisions  and  clauses  to  avoid,  par- 
ticularly in  making  benefactions.  That  was  what 
I  wanted  to  know.  I  would  put  one  of  those 
clauses  in  my  uncle's  will.  I  practised  uncle's 
writing  till  I  was  as  good  a  forger  of  that  clause 
as  anyone  could  have  become.  I  had  picked  out 
the  very  words  in  his  own  handwriting  to  prac- 
tise from. 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   CRACKSMAN       63 

"Then  I  went  to  Paris  and,  as  you  have 
guessed,  learned  how  to  get  things  out  of  a  safe 
like  that  of  uncle's.  Before  God,  all  I  planned 
to  do  was  to  get  that  will,  change  it,  replace  it, 
and  trust  that  uncle  would  never  notice  the 
change.  Then  when  he  was  gone,  I  would  have 
contested  the  will.  I  would  have  got  my  full 
share  either  by  court  proceedings  or  by  settle- 
ment out  of  court.  You  see,  I  had  planned  it  all 
out).  The  school  would  have  been  founded — I, 
we  would  have  founded  it.  What  difference,  I 
said,  did  thirty  millions  or  fifty  millions  make  to 
an  impersonal  school,  a  school  not  yet  even  in  ex- 
istence ?  The  twenty  million  dollars  or  so  differ- 
ence, or  even  half  of  it,  meant  life  and  love  to  me. 

"I  had  planned  to  steal  the  cash  in  the  safe, 
anything  to  divert  attention  from  the  will  and 
make  it  look  like  a  plain  robbery.  I  would  have 
done  the  altering  of  the  will  that  night  and  have 
returned  it  to  the  safe  before  morning.  But  it 
was  not  to  be.  I  had  almost  opened  the  safe 
when  my  uncle  entered  the  room.  His  anger  com- 
pletely unnerved  me,  and  from  the  moment  I 
saw  him  on  the  floor  to  this  I  haven't  had  a  sane 
thought.  I  forgot  to  take  the  cash,  I  forgot 
everything  but  that  will.  My  only  thought  was 
that  I  must  get  it  and  destroy  it.  I  doubt  if  I 
could  have  altered  it  with  my  nerves  so  upset. 
There,  now  you  have  my  whole  story.  I  am  at 
your  mercy.'* 


64  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"No,"  said  Kennedy,  "believe  me,  there  is  a 
mental  statute  of  limitations  that  as  far  as  Jame- 
son and  myself  are  concerned  has  already  erased 
this  affair.  Walter,  will  you  find  Fletcher?" 

I  found  the  professor  pacing  up  and  down  the 
gravel  walk  impatiently. 

"Fletcher,"  said  Kennedy,  "a  night's  rest  is 
all  Miss  Bond  really  needs.  It  is  simply  a  case 
of  overwrought  nerves,  and  it  will  pass  off  of  it- 
self. Still,  I  would  advise  a  change  of  scene  as 
soon  as  possible.  Good  afternoon,  Miss  Bond, 
and  my  best  wishes  for  your  health." 

"Good  afternoon,  Dr.  Kennedy.  Good  after- 
noon, Dr.  Jameson." 

I  for  one  was  glad  to  make  my  escape. 

A  half -hour  later,  Kennedy,  with  well-simu- 
lated excitement,  was  racing  me  in  the  car  up  to 
the  Greenes'  again.  We  literally  burst  unan- 
nounced into  the  tete-a-tete  on  the  porch. 

"Fletcher,  Fletcher,"  cried  Kennedy,  "look 
what  Walter  and  I  have  just  discovered  in  a  tin 
strong-box  poked  off  in  the  back  of  your  uncle's 
desk!" 

Fletcher  seized  the  will  and  by  the  dim  light 
that  shone  through  from  the  hall  read  it  hastily. 
"Thank  God,"  he  cried;  "the  school  is  provided 
for  as  I  thought." 

"Isn't  it  glorious!"  murmured  Helen. 

True  to  my  instinct  I  muttered,  "Another  good 
newspaper  yarn  killed." 


Ill 

THE  BACTERIOLOGICAL  DETECTIVE 

KENNEDY  was  deeply  immersed  in  writing  a  lec- 
ture on  the  chemical  compositions  of  various  bac- 
terial toxins  and  antitoxins,  a  thing  which  was  as 
unfamiliar  to  me  as  Kamchatka,  but  as  familiar 
to  Kennedy  as  Broadway  and  Forty-second 
Street. 

"Really,"  he  remarked,  laying  down  his  foun- 
tain-pen and  lighting  his  cigar  for  the  hundredth 
time,  "the  more  one  thinks  of  how  the  modern 
criminal  misses  his  opportunities  the  more  aston- 
ishing it  seems.  Why  do  they  stick  to  pistols, 
chloroform,  and  prussic  acid  when  there  is  such 
a  splendid  assortment  of  refined  methods  they 
might  employ?'* 

"Give  it  up,  old  man,"  I  replied  helplessly, 
" unless  it  is  because  they  haven't  any  imagination. 
I  hope  they  don't  use  them.  What  would  become 
of  my  business  if  they  did?  How  would  you  ever 
get  a  really  dramatic  news  feature  for  the  Star 
out  of  such  a  thing?  *  Dotted  line  marks  route 
taken  by  fatal  germ;  cross  indicates  spot  where 
antitoxin  attacked  it' — ha!  hat  not  much  for  the 
yellow  journals  in  that,  Craig." 

65 


66  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"To  my  mind,  Walter,  it  would  be  the  height 
of  the  dramatic — far  more  dramatic  than  sending 
a  bullet  into  a  man.  Any  fool  can  shoot  a  pistol 
or  cut  a  throat,  but  it  takes  brains  to  be  up-to- 
date." 

"It  may  be  so,"  I  admitted,  and  went  on  read- 
ing, while  Kennedy  scratched  away  diligently  on 
his  lecture.  I  mention  this  conversation  both  be- 
cause it  bears  on  my  story,  by  a  rather  peculiar 
coincidence,  and  because  it  showed  me  a  new  side 
of  Kennedy's  amazing  researches.  He  was  as 
much  interested  in  bacteria  as  in  chemistry,  and 
the  story  is  one  of  bacteria. 

It  was  perhaps  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later  when 
the  buzzer  on  our  hall  door  sounded.  Imagine 
my  surprise  on  opening  the  door  to  discover  the 
slight  figure  of  what  appeared  to  be  a  most  fasci- 
nating young  lady  who  was  heavily  veiled.  She 
was  in  a  state  almost  bordering  on  hysteria,  as 
even  I,  in  spite  of  my  usual  obtuseness,  noticed. 

"Is  Professor  Kennedy  in?"  she  inquired 
anxiously. 

"Yes,  ma'am,"  I  replied,  opening  the  door  into 
our  study. 

She  advanced  toward  him,  repeating  her  in- 
quiry. 

"I  am  Professor  Kennedy.  Pray  be  seated, " 
he  said. 

The  presence  of  a  lady  in  our  apartment  was 
such  a  novelty  that  really  I  forgot  to  disappear, 


BACTERIOLOGICAL  DETECTIVE      67S 

"but  busied  myself  straightening  the  furniture  and 
opening  a  window  to  allow  the  odour  of  stale  to- 
bacco to  escape. 

"My  name  is  Eveline  Bisbee,"  she  began.  "I 
have  heard,  Professor  Kennedy,  that  you  are  an 
adept  at  getting  at  the  bottom  of  difficult  mys- 
teries." 

"You  flatter  me,"  he  said  in  acknowledgment. 
"Who  was  so  foolish  as  to  tell  you  that!" 

"A  friend  who  has  heard  of  the  Kerr  Parker 
case,"  she  replied. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  I  interrupted,  "I  didn't 
mean  to  intrude.  I  think  I '11  go  out.  I '11  be  back 
in  an  hour  or  two." 

"Please,  Mr.  Jameson — it  is  Mr.  Jameson,  is  it 
not!" 

I  bowed  in  surprise. 

"If  it  is  possible  I  wish  you  would  stay  and 
hear  my  story.  I  am  told  that  you  and  Professor 
Kennedy  always  work  together." 

It  was  my  turn  to  be  embarrassed  by  the  com- 
pliment. 

"Mrs.  Fletcher,  of  Great  Neck,"  she  explained, 
"has  told  me.  I  believe  Professor  Kennedy  per- 
formed a  great  service  for  the  Fletchers,  though 
I  do  not  know  what  it  was.  At  any  rate,  I  have 
come  to  you  with  my  case,  in  which  I  have  small 
hope  of  obtaining  assistance  unless  you  can  help 
me.  If  Professor  Kennedy  cannot  solve  it — well, 
I'm  afraid  nobody  can."  She  paused  a  moment, 


68  THE    SILENT   BULLET 

then  added,  "No  doubt  you  have  read  of  the  deathi 
of  my  guardian  the  other  day." 

Of  course  we  had.  Who  did  not  know  that 
"Jim"  Bisbee,  the  southern  California  oil-mag- 
nate, had  died  suddenly  of  typhoid  fever  at  the 
private  hospital  of  Dr.  Bell,  where  he  had  been 
taken  from  his  magnificent  apartment  on  River- 
side Drive?  Kennedy  and  I  had  discussed  it  at 
the  time.  We  had  commented  on  the  artificiality 
of  the  twentieth  century.  No  longer  did  people 
have  homes;  they  had  apartments,  I  had  said. 
They  didn't  fall  ill  in  the  good  old-fashioned  way 
any  more,  either — in  fact,  they  even  hired  special 
rooms  to  die  in.  They  hired  halls  for  funeral 
services.  It  was  a  wonder  that  they  didn't  hire 
graves.  It  was  all  part  of  our  twentieth  century 
break-up  of  tradition.  Indeed  we  did  know  about 
the  death  of  Jim  Bisbee.  But  there  was  nothing 
mysterious  about  it.  It  was  just  typical  in  all  its 
surroundings  of  the  first  decade  of  the  twentieth 
century  in  a  great,  artificial  city — a  lonely  death 
of  a  great  man  surrounded  by  all  that  money 
could  buy. 

We  had  read  of  his  ward,  too,  the  beautiful  Miss 
Eveline  Bisbee,  a  distant  relation.  As  under  the 
heat  of  the  room  and  her  excitement,  she  raised 
her  veil,  we  were  very  much  interested  in  her.  At 
least,  I  am  sure  that  even  Kennedy  had  by  this 
time  completely  forgotten  the  lecture  on  toxins. 

"There   is    something    about   my   guardian's 


BACTERIOLOGICAL   DETECTIVE      69 

death,"  she  began  in  a  low  and  tremulous  voice, 
"that  I  am  sure  will  bear  investigating.  It  may 
be  only  a  woman's  foolish  fears,  but — but — I 
haven't  told  this  to  a  soul  till  now,  except  Mrs. 
Fletcher.  My  guardian  had,  as  you  perhaps 
know,  spent  his  summer  at  his  country  place  at 
Bisbee  Hall,  New  Jersey,  from  which  he  returned 
rather  suddenly  about  a  week  ago.  Our  friends 
thought  it  merely  a  strange  whim  that  he  should 
return  to  the  city  before  the  summer  was  fairly 
over,  but  it  was  not.  The  day  before  he  returned, 
his  gardener  fell  sick  of  typhoid.  That  decided 
Mr.  Bisbee  to  return  to  the  city  on  the  following 
day.  Imagine  his  consternation  to  find  his  valet 
stricken  the  very  next  morning.  Of  course  he 
motored  to  New  York  immediately,  then  he  wired 
to  me  at  Newport,  and  together  we  opened  his 
apartment  at  the  Louis  Quinze. 

"But  that  was  not  to  be  the  end  of  it.  One 
after  another,  the  servants  at  Bisbee  Hall  were 
taken  with  the  disease  until  five  of  them  were 
down.  Then  came  the  last  blow — Mr.  Bisbee  fell 
a  victim  in  New  York.  So  far  I  have  been 
spared.  But  who  knows  how  much  longer  it  will 
last?  I  have  been  so  frightened  that  I  haven *i 
eaten  a  meal  in  the  apartment  since  I  came  back. 
When  I  am  hungry  I  simply  steal  out  to  a  hotel — 
a  different  one  every  time.  I  never  drink  any 
water  except  tl^at  which  I  have  surreptitiously 
boiled  in  my  own  room  over  a  gas-stove.  Disin- 


70  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

fectants  and  germicides  have  been  used  by  the 
gallon,  and  still  I  don't  feel  safe.  Even  the 
health  authorities  don't  remove  my  fears.  With 
my  guardian's  death  I  had  begun  to  feel  that  pos- 
sibly it  was  over.  But  no.  This  morning  an- 
other servant  who  came  up  from  the  hall  last  week 
was  taken  sick,  and  the  doctor  pronounces  that 
typhoid,  too.  Will  I  be  the  next?  Is  it  just  a 
foolish  fear?  Why  does  it  pursue  us  to  New 
York?  Why  didn't  it  stop  at  Bisbee  Hall?" 

I  don't  think  I  ever  saw  a  living  creature  more 
overcome  by  horror,  by  an  invisible,  deadly  fear. 
That  was  why  it  was  doubly  horrible  in  a  girl  so 
attractive  as  Eveline  Bisbee.  As  I  listened  I  felt 
how  terrible  it  must  be  to  be  pursued  by  such  a 
fear.  What  must  it  be  to  be  dogged  by  a  dis- 
ease as  relentlessly  as  the  typhoid  had  dogged 
her?  If  it  had  been  some  great,  but  visible,  tan- 
gible peril  how  gladly  I  could  have  faced  it  merely 
for  the  smile  of  a  woman  like  this.  But  it  was  a 
peril  that  only  knowledge  and  patience  could 
meet.  Instinctively  I  turned  toward  Kennedy, 
my  own  mind  being  an  absolute  blank. 

"Is  there  anyone  you  suspect  of  being  the  cause 
of  such  an  epidemic?"  he  asked.  "I  may  as  well 
tell  you  right  now  that  I  have  already  formed  two 
theories — one  perfectly  natural,  the  other  diabol- 
ical. Tell  me  everything." 

"Well,  I  had  expected  to  receive  a  fortune  of 
one  million  dollarss  free  and  clear,  by  his  will. 


BACTERIOLOGICAL   DETECTIVE      71 

and  this  morning  I  am  informed  by  his  lawyer, 
James  Denny,  that  a  new  will  had  been  made.  It 
is  still  one  million.  But  the  remainder,  instead 
of  going  to  a  number  of  charities  in  which  he  was 
known  to  be  interested,  goes  to  form  a  trust  fund 
for  the  Bisbee  School  of  Mechanical  Arts,  of 
which  Mr.  Denny  is  the  sole  trustee.  Of  course, 
I  do  not  know  much  about  my  guardian's  inter- 
ests while  he  was  alive,  but  it  strikes  me  as 
strange  that  he  should  have  changed  so  radically, 
and,  besides,  the  new  will  is  so  worded  that  if  I 
die  without  children  my  million  also  goes  to  this 
school — location  unnamed.  I  can't  help  wonder- 
ing about  it  all." 

"Why  should  you  wonder — at  least  what  other 
reasons  have  you  for  wondering?" 

"Oh,  I  can't  express  them.  Maybe  after  all 
it's  only  a  woman's  silly  intuition.  But  often  I 
have  thought  in  the  past  few  days  about  this  ill- 
ness of  my  guardian.  It  was  so  queer.  He  was 
always  so  careful.  And  you  know  the  rich  don't 
often  have  typhoid." 

"You  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  it  was 
not  typhoid  fever  of  which  he  died ! ' ' 

She  hesitated.  "No,"  she  replied,  "but  if  you 
had  known  Mr.  Bisbee  you  would  think  it  strange, 
too.  He  had  a  horror  of  infectious  and  conta- 
gious diseases.  His  apartment  and  his  country 
home  were  models.  No  sanitarium  could  have 
been  more  punctilious.  He  lived  what  one  of  his 


72  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

friends  called  an  antiseptic  life.  Maybe  I  am 
foolish,  but  it  keeps  getting  closer  and  closer  to 
me  now,  and — well,  I  wish  you'd  look  into  the 
case.  Please  set  my  mind  at  rest  and  assure  me 
that  nothing  is  wrong,  that  it  is  all  natural." 

"I  will  help  you,  Miss  Bisbee.  To-morrow 
night  I  want  to  take  a  trip  quietly  to  Bisbee  Hall. 
You  will  see  that  it  is  all  right,  that  I  have  the 
proper  letters  so  I  can  investigate  thoroughly?'* 

I  shall  never  forget  the  mute  and  eloquent 
thanks  with  which  she  said  good  night  after  Ken- 
nedy's promise. 

Kennedy  sat  with  his  eyes  shaded  under  his 
hand  for  fully  an  hour  after  she  had  left.  Then 
he  suddenly  jumped  up.  "Walter,"  he  said, 
"let  us  go  over  to  Dr.  Bell's.  I  know  the  head 
nurse  there.  We  may  possibly  learn  something. ' ' 

As  we  sat  in  the  waiting-room  with  its  thick 
Oriental  rugs  and  handsome  mahagony  furniture, 
I  found  myself  going  back  to  our  conversation  of 
the  early  evening.  "By  Jove,  Kennedy,  you 
were  right,"  I  exclaimed.  "If  there  is  anything 
in  this  germ-plot  idea  of  hers  it  is  indeed  the 
height  of  the  dramatic — it  is  diabolical.  No  ordi- 
nary mortal  would  ever  be  capable  of  it." 

Just  then  the  head  nurse  came  in,  a  large  wo- 
man breathing  of  germlessness  and  cheerfulness 
in  her  spotless  uniform.  We  were  shown  every 
courtesy.  There  was,  in  fact,  nothing  to  conceal. 
*The  visit  set  at  rest  my  last  suspicion  that  per- 


BACTEBIOLOGICAL   DETECTIVE      73 

haps  Jim  Bisbee  had  been  poisoned  by  a  drug. 
The  charts  of  his  temperature  and  the  sincerity 
of  the  nurse  were  absolutely  convincing.  It  had 
really  been  typhoid,  and  there  was  nothing  to  be 
gained  by  pursuing  that  inquiry  further. 

Back  at  the  apartment,  Craig  began  packing  his 
suit-case  with  the  few  things  he  would  need  for 
a  journey.  "I'm  going  out  to  Bisbee  Hall  to- 
morrow for  a  few  days,  Walter,  and  if  you  could 
find  it  convenient  to  come  along  I  should  like  to 
have  your  assistance." 

"To  tell  you  the  truth,  Craig,  I  am  afraid  to 
go, "  I  said. 

"You  needn't  be.  I'm  going  down  to  the  army 
post  on  Governor's  Island  first  to  be  vaccinated 
against  typhoid.  Then  I  am  going  to  wait  a  few 
hours  till  it  takes  effect  before  going.  It's  the 
only  place  in  the  city  where  one  can  be  inoculated 
against  it,  so  far  as  I  know.  While  three  inocu- 
lations are  really  best,  I  understand  that  one  is 
sufficient  for  ordinary  protection,  and  that  is  all 
we  shall  need,  if  any." 

"You're  sure  of  it?" 

"Almost  positive." 

' '  Very  well,  Craig.    I  '11  go. " 

Down  at  the  army  post  the  next  morning  we 
had  no  difficulty  in  being  inoculated  against  the 
disease.  The  work  of  immunising  our  army  was 
going  on  at  that  time,  and  several  thousands  of 
soldiers  in  various  parts  of  the  country  had  al- 


74  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

ready  been  vaccinated,  with  the  best  of  results. 

"Do  many  civilians  come  over  to  be  vacci- 
nated?'* asked  Craig  of  Major  Carrol,  the  sur- 
geon in  charge. 

"Not  many,  for  very  few  have  heard  of  it," 
he  replied. 

"I  suppose  you  keep  a  record  of  them." 

"Only  their  names — we  can't  follow  them  up 
outside  the  army,  to  see  how  it  works.  Still, 
when  they  come  to  us  as  you  and  Mr.  Jameson 
have  done  we  are  perfectly  willing  to  vaccinate 
them.  The  Army  Medical  Corps  takes  the  posi- 
tion that  if  it  is  good  for  the  army  it  is  good  for 
civil  life,  and  as  long  as  only  a  few  civilians  ap- 
ply we  are  perfectly  willing  to  do  it  for  a  fee  cov- 
ering the  cost." 

"And  would  you  let  me  see  the  list?" 

"Certainly.  You  may  look  it  over  in  a  mo- 
ment." 

Kennedy  glanced  hurriedly  through  the  short 
list  of  names,  pulled  out  his  notebook,  made  an 
entry,  and  handed  the  list  back.  "Thank  you, 
Major." 

Bisbee  Hall  was  a  splendid  place  set  in  the  heart 
of  a  great  park  whose  area  was  measured  by 
square  miles  rather  than  by  acres.  But  Craig  did 
not  propose  to  stay  there,  for  he  arranged  for  ac- 
commodations in  a  near-by  town,  where  we  were 
to  take  our  meals  also.  It  was  late  when  we  ar- 
rived, and  we  spent  a  restless  night,  for  the  in- 


BACTERIOLOGICAL   DETECTIVE      75 

oculation  "took."  It  wasn't  any  worse  than  a 
light  attack  of  the  grippe,  and  in  the  morning  we 
were  both  all  right  again,  after  the  passing  of 
what  is  called  the  "negative  phase."  I,  for  one, 
felt  much  safer. 

The  town  was  very  much  excited  over  the  epi- 
demic at  the  hall,  and  if  I  had  been  wondering 
why  Craig  wanted  me  along  my  wonder  was  soon 
set  at  rest.  He  had  me  scouring  the  town  and 
country  looking  up  every  case  or  rumour  of  ty- 
phoid for  miles  around.  I  made  the  local  weekly 
paper  my  headquarters,  and  the  editor  was  very 
obliging.  He  let  me  read  all  his  news  letters 
from  his  local  correspondent  at  every  cross- 
roads. I  waded  through  accounts  of  new  calves 
and  colts,  new  fences  and  barns,  who  "Sun- 
dayed"  with  his  brother,  etc.,  and  soon  had  a  list 
of  all  the  cases  in  that  part  of  the  country.  It 
was  not  a  long  one,  but  it  was  scattered.  After 
I  had  traced  them  out,  following  Kennedy's  in- 
structions, they  showed  nothing,  except  that  they 
were  unrelated  to  the  epidemic  at  the  hall. 

Meanwhile,  Kennedy  was  very  busy  there.  He 
had  a  microscope  and  slides  and  test-tubes  and 
chemicals  for  testing  things,  and  I  don't  know 
what  all,  for  there  was  not  time  to  initiate  me 
into  all  the  mysteries.  He  tested  the  water  from 
the  various  driven  wells  and  in  the  water-tank, 
and  the  milk  from  the  cows;  he  tried  to  find  out 
what  food  had  come  in  from  outside,  though 


76  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

there  was  practically  none,  for  the  hall  was  self- 
supporting.  There  was  no  stone  he  left  un- 
turned. 

When  I  rejoined  him  that  night  he  was  clearly 
perplexed.  I  don't  think  my  report  decreased 
his  perplexity,  either. 

"  There  is  only  one  thing  left  as  far  as  I  have 
been  able  lo  discover  after  one  day's  work,"  he 
said,  after  we  had  gone  over  our  activities  for  the 
day.  "Jim  Bisbee  never  drank  the  water  from 
his  own  wells.  He  always  drank  a  bottled  water 
shipped  down  from  a  camp  of  his  in  New  York 
State,  where  he  had  a  remarkable  mountain 
spring.  I  tested  a  number  of  the  full  bottles  at  the 
hall,  but  they  were  perfectly  pure.  There  wasn  't 
a  trace  of  the  bacillus  typhosus  in  any  of  them. 
Then  it  occurred  to  me  that,  after  all,  that  was 
not  the  thing  to  do.  I  should  test  the  empty  ones. 
But  there  weren't  any  empty  ones.  They  told 
me  they  had  all  been  taken  down  to  the  freight 
station  yesterday  to  be  shipped  back  to  the  camp. 
I  hope  they  haven't  gone  yet.  Let's  drive  around 
and  see  if  they  are  there." 

The  freight-master  was  just  leaving,  but  when 
he  learned  we  were  from  the  hall  he  consented  to 
let  us  examine  the  bottles.  They  were  corked  and 
in  wooden  cases,  which  protected  them  perfectly. 
By  the  light  of  the  station  lamps  and  the  aid  of 
a  pocket-lens,  Kennedy  examined  them  on  the 
outside  and  satisfied  himself  that  after  being  re- 


BACTERIOLOGICAL   DETECTIVE      IT 

placed  in  the  wooden  cases  the  bottles  themselves 
had  not  been  handled. 

"Will  you  let  me  borrow  some  of  these  bottles 
to-night  ?  "  he  asked  the  agent.  ' '  I  '11  give  you  my 
word  that  they  will  be  returned  safely  to-morrow. 
If  necessary,  I'll  get  an  order  for  them.'* 

The  station-agent  reluctantly  yielded,  espe- 
cially as  a  small  green  banknote  figured  in  the 
transaction.  Craig  and  I  tenderly  lifted  the  big 
bottles  in  their  cases  into  our  trap  and  drove  back 
to  our  rooms  in  the  hotel.  It  quite  excited  the 
hangers-on  to  see  us  drive  up  with  a  lot  of  empty 
five-gallon  bottles  and  carry  them  up-stairs,  but 
I  had  long  ago  given  up  having  any  fear  of  pub- 
lic opinion  in  carrying  out  anything  Craig  wanted. 

In  our  room  we  worked  far  into  the  night. 
Craig  carefully  swabbed  out  the  bottom  and  sides 
of  each  bottle  by  inserting  a  little  piece  of  cotton 
on  the  end  of  a  long  wire.  Then  he  squeezed  the 
water  out  of  the  cotton  swab  on  small  glass 
slides  coated  with  agar-agar,  or  Japanese  sea- 
weed, a  medium  in  which  germ-cultures  multi- 
ply rapidly.  He  put  the  slides  away  in  a  little 
oven  with  an  alcohol-lamp  which  he  had  brought 
along,  leaving  them  to  remain  over  night  at  blood 
heat. 

I  had  noticed  all  this  time  that  he  was  very( 
particular  not  to  touch  any  of  the  bottles  on  the 
outside.  As  for  me,  I  wouldn't  have  touched 
them  for  the  world.  In  fact,  I  was  getting  so  I 


78  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

hesitated  to  touch  anything.  I  was  almost  afraid 
to  breathe,  though  I  knew  there  was  no  harm  in 
that.  However,  it  was  not  danger  of  infection 
in  touching  the  bottles  that  made  Craig  so  care- 
ful. He  had  noted,  in  the  dim  light  of  the  station 
lamps,  what  seemed  to  be  finger-marks  on  the  bot- 
tles, and  they  had  interested  him,  in  fact,  had  de- 
cided him  on  a  further  investigation  of  the  bot- 
tles. 

"I  am  now  going  to  bring  out  these  very  faint 
finger-prints  on  the  bottles,"  remarked  Craig, 
proceeding  with  his  examination  in  the  better 
light  of  our  room.  "Here  is  some  powder  known 
to  chemists  as  'grey  powder' — mercury  and  chalk. 
I  sprinkle  it  over  the  faint  markings,  so,  and  then 
I  brush  it  off  with  a  camel 's-hair  brush  lightly. 
That  brings  out  the  imprint  much  more  clearly, 
as  you  can  see.  For  instance,  if  you  place  your 
dry  thumb  on  a  piece  of  white  paper  you  leave  no 
visible  impression.  If  grey  powder  is  sprinkled 
over  the  spot  and  then  brushed  off  a  distinct  im- 
pression is  seen.  If  the  impression  of  the  fingers 
is  left  on  something  soft,  like  wax,  it  is  often 
best  to  use  printers'  ink  to  bring  out  the  ridges 
and  patterns  of  the  finger-marks.  And  so  on  for 
various  materials.  Quite  a  science  has  been  built 
up  around  finger-prints. 

"I  wish  I  had  that  enlarging  camera  which  I 
have  in  my  laboratory.  However,  my  ordinary 
camera  will  do,  for  all  I  want  is  to  preserve  a 


BACTERIOLOGICAL  DETECTIVE      79 

record  of  these  marks,  and  I  can  enlarge  the 
photographs  later.  In  the  morning  I  will  photo- 
graph these  marks  and  you  can  do  the  developing 
of  the  films.  To-night  we'll  improvise  the  bath- 
room as  a  dark-room  and  get  everything  ready  so 
that  we  can  start  in  bright  and  early." 

We  were,  indeed,  up  early.  One  never  has 
'difficulty  in  getting  up  early  in  the  country:  it  is 
so  noisy,  at  least  to  a  city-bred  man.  City  noise 
at  five  A.  M.  is  sepulchral  silence  compared  with 
bucolic  activity  at  that  hour. 

There  were  a  dozen  negatives  which  I  set  about 
developing  after  Craig  had  used  up  all  our  films. 
Meanwhile,  he  busied  himself  adjusting  his  mi- 
croscope and  test-tubes  and  getting  the  agar 
slides  ready  for  examination. 

Shirt-sleeves  rolled  up,  I  was  deeply  immersed 
in  my  work  when  I  heard  a  shout  in  the  next 
room,  and  the  bath-room  door  flew  open. 

* '  Confound  you,  Kennedy,  do  you  want  to  ruin 
these  films!"  I  cried. 

He  shut  the  door  with  a  bang.  "Hurrah, 
Walter!"  he  exclaimed.  "I  think  I  have  it,  at 
last.  I  have  just  found  some  most  promising 
colonies  of  the  bacilli  on  one  of  my  slides." 

I  almost  dropped  the  pan  of  acid  I  was  hold- 
ing, in  my  excitement.  "Well,"  I  said,  conceal- 
ing my  own  surprise,  "I've  found  out  something, 
too.  Every  one  of  these  finger-prints  so  far  is 
from  the  same  pair  of  hands." 


80  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

We  scarcely  ate  any  breakfast,  and  were  soon 
on  our  way  up  to  the  hall.  Craig  had  provided 
himself  at  the  local  stationer's  with  an  inking- 
pad,  such  as  is  used  for  rubber  stamps.  'At  the 
hall  he  proceeded  to  get  the  impressions  of  the 
fingers  and  thumbs  of  all  the  servants. 

It  was  quite  a  long  and  difficult  piece  of  work 
to  compare  the  finger-prints  we  had  taken  with 
those  photographed,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
writers  descant  on  the  ease  with  which  criminals 
are  traced  by  this  system  devised  by  the  famous 
Galton.  However,  we  at  last  finished  the  job  be- 
tween us ;  or  rather  Craig  finished  it,  with  an  oc- 
casional remark  from  me.  His  dexterity  amazed 
me;  it  was  more  than  mere  book  knowledge. 

For  a  moment  we  sat  regarding  each  other  hope- 
lessly. None  of  the  finger-prints  taken  at  the  hall 
tallied  with  the  photographed  prints.  Then 
Craig  rang  for  the  housekeeper,  a  faithful  old 
soul  whom  even  the  typhoid  scare  could  not  budge 
from  her  post. 

"Are  you  sure  I  have  seen  all  the  servants  who 
were  at  the  hall  while  Mr.  Bisbee  was  here?" 
asked  Craig. 

"Why,  no,  sir — you  didn't  ask  that.  You 
asked  to  see  all  who  are  here  now.  There  is  only 
one  who  has  left,  the  cook,  Bridget  Fallon.  She 
left  a  couple  of  days  ago — said  she  was  going 
back  to  New  York  to  get  another  job.  Glad 
enough  I  was  to  get  rid  of  her,  too,  for  she  was 


BACTERIOLOGICAL  DETECTIVE      81 

drunk  most  of  the  time  after  the  typhoid  ap- 
peared." 

"Well,  Walter,  I  guess  we  shall  have  to  go 
back  to  New  York  again,  then,"  exclaimed  Ken- 
nedy. "Oh,  I  beg  pardon,  Mrs.  Rawson,  for  in- 
terrupting. Thank  you  ever  so  much.  Where 
did  Bridget  come  from?" 

' '  She  came  well  recommended,  sir.  Here  is  the 
letter  in  my  writing-desk.  She  had  been  em- 
ployed by  the  Caswell-Joneses  at  Shelter  Island 
before  she  came  here." 

"I  may  keep  this  letter!"  asked  Craig,  scan- 
ning it  quickly. 

"Yes." 

"By  the  way,  where  were  the  bottles  of  spring 
water  kept?" 

"In  the  kitchen." 

"Did  Bridget  take  charge  of  them?" 

"Yes." 

"Did  Mr.  Bisbee  have  any  guests  during  the 
last  week  that  he  was  here?" 

"Only  Mr.  Denny  one  night." 

"H'm!"  exclaimed  Craig.  "Well,  it  will  not 
«e  so  hard  for  us  to  unravel  this  matter,  after 
all,  when  we  get  back  to  the  city.  We  must  make 
that  noon  train,  Walter.  There  is  nothing  more 
for  us  to  do  here." 

Emerging  from  the  "Tube"  at  Ninth  Street, 
Craig  hustled  me  into  a  taxicab,  and  in  almost 
no  time  we  were  at  police  headquarters. 


82  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

Fortunately,  Inspector  Barney  O'Connor  was 
in  and  in  an  amiable  mood,  too,  for  Kennedy  had 
been  careful  that  the  Central  Office  received  a 
large  share  of  credit  for  the  Kerr  Parker  case. 
Craig  sketched  hastily  the  details  of  this  new 
case.  O'Connor's  face  was  a  study.  His  honest 
blue  Irish  eyes  fairly  bulged  in  wonder,  and  when 
Craig  concluded  with  a  request  for  help  I  think 
O'Connor  would  have  given  him  anything  in  the 
office,  just  to  figure  in  the  case. 

"First,  I  want  one  of  your  men  to  go  to  the 
surrogate's  office  and  get  the  original  of  the  will. 
I  shall  return  it  within  a  couple  of  hours — all  I 
want  to  do  is  to  make  a  photographic  copy. 
Then  another  man  must  find  this  lawyer,  James 
Denny,  and  in  some  way  get  his  finger-prints — 
you  must  arrange  that  yourself.  And  send  an- 
other fellow  up  to  the  employment  offices  on 
Fourth  Avenue  and  have  him  locate  this  cook, 
Bridget  Fallen.  I  want  her  finger-prints,  too. 
Perhaps  she  had  better  be  detained,  for  I  don't 
want  her  to  get  away.  Oh,  and  say,  O'Connor, 
do  you  want  to  finish  this  case  up  like  the  crack 
of  a  whip  to-night  I" 

"I'm  game,  sir.    What  of  it?" 

"Let  me  see.  It  is  now  four  o'clock.  If  you 
can  get  hold  of  all  these  people  in  time  I  think  I 
shall  be  ready  for  the  final  scene  to-night — say, 
at  nine.  You  know  how  to  arrange  it.  Have 
them  all  present  at  my  laboratory  at  nine,  and  I 


BACTEEIOLOGICAL   DETECTIVE      83 

promise  we  shall  have  a  story  that  will  get  into 
the  morning  papers  with  leaded  type  on  the  front 
page." 

"Now,  Walter,*'  he  added,  as  we  hurried  down 
to  the  taxicab  again,  "I  want  you  to  drop  off  at 
the  Department  of  Health  with  this  card  to  the 
commissioner.  I  believe  you  know  Dr.  Leslie. 
Well,  ask  him  if  he  knows  anything  about  this 
Bridget  Fallen.  I  will  go  on  up-town  to  the  labo- 
ratory and  get  my  apparatus  ready.  You  needn't 
come  up  till  nine,  old  fellow,  for  I  shall  be  busy 
till  then,  but  be  sure  when  you  come  that  you 
bring  the  record  of  this  Fallon  woman  if  you  have 
to  beg,  borrow,  or  steal  it." 

I  didn't  understand  it,  but  I  took  the  card  and 
obeyed  implicitly.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  I 
was  keyed  up  to  the  greatest  pitch  of  excitement 
during  my  interview  with  the  health  commis- 
sioner, when  I  finally  got  in  to  see  him.  I  hadn  't 
talked  to  him  long  before  a  great  light  struck 
me,  and  I  began  to  see  what  Craig  was  driving  at. 
The  commissioner  saw  it  first. 

"If  you  don't  mind,  Mr.  Jameson,"  'he  said, 
after  I  had  told  him  as  much  of  my  story  as  I 
could,  "will  you  call  up  Professor  Kennedy  and 
tell  him  I'd  like  very  much  to  be  present  to-night 
myself?" 

"Certainly  I  will,"  I  replied,  glad  to  get  my 
errand  done  in  first-class  fashion  in  that  way. 

Things  must  have  been  running  smoothly,  for 


84  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

while  I  was  sitting  in  our  apartment  after  dinner, 
impatiently  waiting  for  half-past  eight,  when  the 
commissioner  had  promised  to  call  for  me  and  go 
•up  to  the  laboratory,  the  telephone  rang.  It  was 
Craig. 

"Walter,  might  I  ask  a  favour  of  you?"  he 
said.  "When  the  commissioner  comes  ask  him 
to  stop  at  the  Louis  Quinze  and  bring  Miss  Bisbee 
up,  too.  Tell  her  it  is  important.  No  more  now. 
Things  are  going  ahead  fine." 

Promptly  at  nine  we  were  assembled,  a  curious 
crowd.  The  health  commissioner  and  the  in- 
spector, being  members  of  the  same  political 
party,  greeted  each  other  by  their  first  names. 
Miss  Bisbee  was  nervous,  Bridget  was  abusive, 
Denny  was  sullen.  As  for  Kennedy,  he  was,  as 
usual,  as  cool  as  a  lump  of  ice.  And  I — well,  I 
just  sat  on  my  feelings  to  keep  myself  quiet. 

At  one  end  of  the  room  Craig  had  placed  a 
large  white  sheet  such  as  he  used  in  his  stereopti- 
con  lectures,  while  at  the  top  of  the  tier  of  seats 
that  made  a  sort  of  little  amphitheatre  out  of  his 
lecture-room  his  stereopticon  sputtered. 

"Moving  pictures  to-night,  eh?"  said  Inspector 
0  'Connor. 

"Not  exactly,"  said  Craig,  "though — yes,  they 
will  be  moving  in  another  sense.  Now,  if  we  are 
all  ready,  I'll  switch  off  the  electric  lights." 

The  calcium  sputtered  some  more,  and  a  square 
of  light  was  thrown  on  the  sheet. 


BACTERIOLOGICAL  DETECTIVE      85 

Kennedy  snapped  a  little  announcer  such  as 
lecturers  use.  "Let  me  invite  your  attention  to 
these  enlargements  of  finger-prints,"  he  began, 
as  a  huge  thumb  appeared  on  the  screen.  ' '  Here 
we  have  a  series  of  finger-prints  which  I  will  show 
one  after  another  slowly.  They  are  all  of  the 
fingers  of  the  same  person,  and  they  were  found 
on  some  empty  bottles  of  spring  water  used  at 
Bisbee  Hall  during  the  two  weeks  previous  to  the 
departure  of  Mr.  Bisbee  for  New  York. 

"Here  are,  in  succession,  the  finger-prints  of 
the  various  servants  employed  about  the  house — 
and  of  a  guest,"  added  Craig,  with  a  slight  change 
of  tone.  "They  differ  markedly  from  the  finger- 
prints on  the  glass,"  he  continued,  as  one  after 
another  appeared,  "all  except  this  last  one. 
That  is  identical.  It  is,  Inspector,  what  we  call 
a  composite  type  of  finger-print — in  this  case  a 
combination  of  what  is  called  the  'loop'  and 
*  whorl'  types."1 

No  sound  broke  the  stillness  save  the  sputter- 
ing of  the  oxygen  on  the  calcium  of  the  stereopti- 
con. 

"The  owner  of  the  fingers  from  which  these 
prints  were  made  is  in  this  room.  It  was  from 
typhoid  germs  on  these  fingers  that  the  fever  was 
introduced  into  the  drinking  water  at  Bisbee 
Hall." 

Kennedy  paused  to  emphasise  the  statement, 
then  continued. 


86  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

"I  am  now  going  to  ask  Dr.  Leslie  to  give  us 
a  little  talk  on  a  recent  discovery  in  the  field  of 
typhoid  fever — you  understand,  Commissioner, 
what  I  mean,  I  believe  T ' ' 

"Perfectly.    Shall  I  mention  names?" 

"No,  not  yet." 

"Well,"  began  Dr.  Leslie,  clearing  his  throat, 
"within  the  past  year  or  two  we  have  made  a 
most  weird  and  startling  discovery  in  typhoid  fe- 
ver. We  have  found  what  we  now  call  'typhoid 
carriers' — persons  who  do  not  have  the  disease 
themselves,  perhaps  never  have  had  it,  but  who  are 
literally  living  test-tubes  of  the  typhoid  bacillus. 
It  is  positively  uncanny.  Everywhere  they  go 
they  scatter  the  disease.  Down  at  the  depart- 
ment we  have  the  records  of  a  number  of  such  in- 
stances, and  our  men  in  the  research  laboratories 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  that,  far  from  being 
of  rare  occurrence,  these  cases  are  compara- 
tively common.  I  have  in  mind  one  particular 
case  of  a  servant  girl,  who,  during  the  past  five 
or  six  years,  has  been  employed  in  several  fam- 
ilies. 

"In  every  family  typhoid  fever  has  later  broken 
out.  Experts  have  traced  out  at  least  thirty 
cases  and  several  deaths  due  to  this  one  person. 
In  another  case  we  found  an  epidemic  up  in  Har- 
lem to  be  due  to  a  typhoid  carrier  on  a  remote 
farm  in  Connecticut.  This  carrier,  innocently 
enough,  it  is  true,  contaminated  the  milk-supply 


BACTERIOLOGICAL   DETECTIVE      87 

coming  from  that  farm.  The  result  was  over 
fifty  cases  of  typhoid  here  in  this  city. 

'  'However,  to  return  to  the  case  of  the  servant 
I  have  mentioned.  Last  spring  we  had  her  under 
surveillance,  but  as  there  was  no  law  by  which  we 
could  restrain  her  permanently  she  is  still  at 
large.  I  think  one  of  the  Sunday  papers  at  the 
time  had  an  account  of  her — they  called  her  'Ty- 
phoid Bridget,'  and  in  red  ink  she  was  drawn 
across  the  page  in  gruesome  fashion,  frying  the 
skulls  of  her  victims  in  a  frying-pan  over  a  roar- 
ing fire.  That  particular  typhoid  carrier,  I  un- 
derstand— " 

"Excuse  me,  Commissioner,  if  I  interrupt,  but 
I  think  we  have  carried  this  part  of  the  pro- 
gramme far  enough  to  be  absolutely  convincing, ' ' 
said  Craig.  ' '  Thank  you  very  much  for  the  clear 
way  in  which  you  have  put  it." 

Craig  snapped  the  announcer,  and  a  letter  ap- 
peared on  the  screen.  He  said  nothing,  but  let 
us  read  it  through : 

To  whom  it  may  concern: 

This  is  to  certify  that  Bridget  Pallon  has  been  em- 
ployed in  my  family  at  Shelter  Island  for  the  past  sea- 
son and  that  I  have  found  her  a  reliable  servant  and  an 
excellent  cook. 

A.  ST.  JOHN  CASWELL-JONES. 

"Before  God,  Mr.  Kennedy,  I'm  innocent," 
screeched  Bridget.  "Don't  have  me  arrested. 
I'm  innocent.  I'm  innocent." 


88  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

Craig  gently,  but  firmly,  forced  her  back  into 
her  chair. 

Again  the  announcer  snapped.  This  time  the 
last  page  of  Mr.  Bisbee's  will  appeared  on  the 
sheet,  ending  with  his  signature  and  the  wit- 
nesses. 

"I'm  now  going  to  show  these  two  specimens 
of  handwriting  very  greatly  enlarged,"  he  said, 
as  the  stereopticon  plates  were  shifted  again. 

' '  An  author  of  many  scientific  works,  Dr.  Lind- 
say Johnson,  of  London,  has  recently  elaborated 
a  new  theory  with  regard  to  individuality  in  hand- 
writing. He  maintains  that  in  certain  diseases 
a  person's  pulse  beats  are  individual,  and  that  no 
one  suffering  from  any  such  disease  can  control, 
even  for  a  brief  space  of  time,  the  frequency  or 
peculiar  irregularities  of  his  heart's  action,  as 
shown  by  a  chart  recording  his  pulsation.  Such 
a  chart  is  obtained  for  medical  purposes  by  means 
of  a  sphygmograph,  an  instrument  fitted  to  the 
patient's  forearm  and  supplied  with  a  needle, 
which  can  be  so  arranged  as  to  record  automati- 
cally on  a  prepared  sheet  of  paper  the  peculiar 
force  and  frequency  of  the  pulsation.  Or  the 
pulsation  may  be  simply  observed  in  the  rise  and 
fall  of  a  liquid  in  a  tube.  Dr.  Johnson  holds  the 
opinion  that  a  pen  in  the  hand  of  a  writer  servesp 
in  a  modified  degree,  the  same  end  as  the  needle 
in  the  first-named  form  of  the  sphygmograph  and 
that  in  such  a  person's  handwriting  one  can  see 


BACTERIOLOGICAL   DETECTIVE      89 

by  projecting  the  letters,  greatly  magnified,  on  a 
screen,  the  scarcely  perceptible  turns  and  quivers 
made  in  the  lines  by  the  spontaneous  action  of 
that  person's  peculiar  pulsation. 

"To  prove  this,  the  doctor  carried  out  an  ex- 
periment at  Charing  Cross  Hospital.  At  his  re- 
quest a  number  of  patients  suffering  from  heart 
and  kidney  diseases  wrote  the  Lord's  Prayer  in 
their  ordinary  handwriting.  The  different  manu- 
scripts were  then  taken  and  examined  microscopi- 
cally. By  throwing  them,  highly  magnified,  on 
a  screen,  the  jerks  or  involuntary  motions  due  to 
the  patient's  peculiar  pulsations  were  distinctly 
visible.  The  handwriting  of  persons  in  normal 
health,  says  Dr.  Johnson,  does  not  always  show 
their  pulse  beats.  What  one  can  say,  however, 
is  that  when  a  document,  purporting  to  be  written, 
by  a  certain  person,  contains  traces  of  pulse  beats 
and  the  normal  handwriting  of  that  person  does 
not  show  them,  then  clearly  that  document  is  a 
forgery. 

"Now,  in  these  two  specimens  of  handwriting 
which  we  have  enlarged  it  is  plain  that  the  writers 
of  both  of  them  suffered  from  a  certain  peculiar 
disease  of  the  heart.  Moreover,  I  am  prepared 
to  show  that  the  pulse  beats  exhibited  in  the  case 
of  certain  pen-strokes  in  one  of  these  documents 
are  exhibited  in  similar  strokes  in  the  other. 
Furthermore,  I  have  ascertained  from  his  family 
physician,  whose  affidavit  I  have  here,  that  Mr. 


90  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

Bisbee  did  not  suffer  from  this  or  any  other  form 
of  heart  disease.  Mr.  Caswell-Jones,  in  addition 
to  wiring  me  that  he  refused  to  write  Bridget 
Fallon  a  recommendation  after  the  typhoid  broke 
out  in  his  country  house,  also  says  he  does  not 
suffer  from  heart  disease  in  any  form.  From  the 
tremulous  character  of  the  letters  and  figures  in 
both  these  documents,  which  when  magnified  is 
the  more  easily  detected,  I  therefore  conclude 
that  both  are  forgeries,  and  I  am  ready  to  go 
farther  and  say  that  they  are  forgeries  from  the 
same  hand. 

"It  usually  takes  a  couple  of  weeks  after  in- 
fection for  typhoid  to  develop,  a  time  sufficient  in 
itself  to  remove  suspicion  from  acts  which  might 
otherwise  be  scrutinised  very  carefully  if  happen- 
ing immediately  before  the  disease  developed. 
I  may  add,  also,  that  it  is  well  known  that  stout 
people  do  very  poorly  when  they  contract  typhoid, 
especially  if  they  are  old.  Mr.  Bisbee  was  both 
stout  and  old.  To  contract  typhoid  was  for  him 
a  virtual  death-warrant.  Knowing  all  these 
facts,  a  certain  person  purposely  sought  out  a 
crafty  means  of  introducing  typhoid  fever  into 
Mr.  Bisbee 's  family.  That  person,  furthermore, 
was  inoculated  against  typhoid  three  times  dur- 
ing the  month  before  the  disease  was  devilishly 
and  surreptitiously  introduced  into  Bisbee  Hall, 
in  order  to  protect  himself  or  herself  should  it 
become  necessary  for  that  person  to  visit  Bisbee 


BACTERIOLOGICAL  DETECTIVE      91 

Hall.  That  person,  I  believe,  is  the  one  who  suf- 
fered from  an  aneurism  of  the  heart,  the  writer, 
or  rather  the  forger,  of  the  two  documents  I  have 
shown,  by  one  of  which  he  or  she  was  to  profit 
greatly  by  the  death  of  Mr.  Bisbee  and  the  found- 
ing of  an  alleged  school  in  a  distant  part  of  the 
country — a  subterfuge,  if  you  recall,  used  in  at 
least  one  famous  case  for  which  the  convicted  per- 
petrator is  now  under  a  life  sentence  in  Sing  Sing. 

"I  will  ask  Dr.  Leslie  to  take  this  stethoscope 
and  examine  the  hearts  of  everyone  in  the  room 
and  tell  me  whether  there  is  anyone  here  suffer- 
ing from  an  aneurism." 

The  calcium  light  ceased  to  sputter.  One  per- 
son after  another  was  examined  by  the  health 
commissioner.  Was  it  merely  my  imagination, 
or  did  I  really  hear  a  heart  beating  with  wild 
leaps  as  if  it  would  burst  the  bonds  of  its  prison 
and  make  its  escape  if  possible?  Perhaps  it  was 
only  the  engine  of  the  commissioner's  machine 
out  on  the  campus  driveway.  I  don't  know.  At 
any  rate,  he  went  silently  from  one  to  the  other, 
betraying  not  even  by  his  actions  what  he  dis- 
covered with  the  stethoscope.  The  suspense  was 
terrible.  I  felt  Miss  Bisbee 's  hand  involuntarily 
grasp  my  arm  convulsively.  Without  disturbing 
the  silence,  I  reached  a  glass  of  water  standing 
near  me  on  Craig's  lecture- table  and  handed  it 
to  her. 

The    commissioner    was    bending    over    the 


92  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

lawyer,  trying  to  adjust  the  stethoscope  Better  to 
his  ears.  The  lawyer's  head  was  resting  heavily 
on  his  hand,  and  he  was  heaped  up  in  an  awkward 
position  in  the  cramped  lecture-room  seat.  It 
seemed  an  age  as  Dr.  Leslie  tried  to  adjust  the 
stethoscope.  Even  Craig  felt  the  excitement. 
While  the  commissioner  hesitated,  Kennedy 
reached  over  and  impatiently  switched  on  the  elec- 
tric light  in  full  force. 

As  the  light  flooded  the  room,  blinding  us  for 
the  instant,  the  large  form  of  Dr.  Leslie  stood  be- 
tween us  and  the  lawyer. 

"What  does  the  stethoscope  tell  you,  Doctor?" 
asked  Craig,  leaning  forward  expectantly.  He 
was  as  unprepared  for  the  answer  as  any  of  us. 

"It  tells  me  that  a  higher  court  than  those  of 
New  York  has  passed  judgment  on  this  astound- 
ing criminal.  The  aneurism  has  burst." 

I  felt  a  soft  weight  fall  on  my  shoulder.  The 
morning  Star  did  not  have  the  story,  after  all.  I 
missed  the  greatest  "scoop"  of  my  life  seeing 
Eveline  Bisbee  safely  to  her  home  after  she  had 
recovered  from  the  shock  of  Denny's  exposure 
and  punishment. 


IV 

THE  DEADLY  TUBE 

"FoR  Heaven's  sake,  Gregory,  what  is  the  mat- 
ter?" asked  Craig  Kennedy  as  a  tall,  nervous 
man  stalked  into  our  apartment  one  evening. 
"Jameson,  shake  hands  with  Dr.  Gregory. 
What's  the  matter,  Doctor?  Surely  your  X-ray 
work  hasn't  knocked  you  out  like  this?" 

The  doctor  shook  hands  with  me  mechanically. 
His  hand  was  icy.  "The  blow  has  fallen,"  he  ex- 
claimed, as  he  sank  limply  into  a  chair  and  tossed 
an  evening  paper  over  to  Kennedy. 

In  red  ink  on  the  first  page,  in  the  little  square 
headed  "Latest  News,"  Kennedy  read  the  cap- 
tion, "Society  Woman  Crippled  for  Life  by  X- 
Eay  Treatment." 

"A  terrible  tragedy  was  revealed  in  the  suit 
begun  to-day,"  continued  the  article,  "by  Mrs. 
Huntington  Close  against  Dr.  James  Gregory, 

an  X-ray  specialist  with  offices  at Madison 

Avenue,  to  recover  damages  for  injuries  which 
Mrs.  Close  alleges  she  received  while  under  his 
care.  Several  months  ago  she  began  a  course  of 
X-ray  treatment  to  remove  a  birthmark  on  her 
neck.  In  her  complaint  Mrs.  Close  alleges  that 
Dr.  Gregory  has  carelessly  caused  X-ray  derma- 

93 


94  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

titis,  a  skin  disease  of  cancerous  nature,  and  that 
she  has  also  been  rendered  a  nervous  wreck 
through  the  effects  of  the  rays.  Simultaneously 
with  filing  the  suit  she  left  home  and  entered  a 
private  hospital.  Mrs.  Close  is  one  of  the  most 
popular  hostesses  in  the  smart  set,  and  her  loss 
will  be  keenly  felt." 

"What  am  I  to  do,  Kennedy?"  asked  the  doc- 
tor imploringly.  "You  remember  I  told  you  the 
other  day  about  this  case — that  there  was  some- 
thing queer  about  it,  that  after  a  few  treatments 
I  was  afraid  to  carry  on  any  more  and  refused  to 
do  so?  She  really  has  dermatitis  and  nervous 
prostration,  exactly  as  she  alleges  in  her  com- 
plaint. But,  before  Heaven,  Kennedy,  I  can't 
see  how  she  could  possibly  have  been  so  affected 
by  the  few  treatments  I  gave  her.  And  to-night, 
just  as  I  was  leaving  the  office,  I  received  a  tele- 
phone call  from  her  husband's  attorney, 
'Lawrence,  very  kindly  informing  me  that  the  case 
would  be  pushed  to  the  limit.  I  tell  you,  it  looks 
black  for  me." 

"What  can  they  do?" 

"Do?  Do  you  suppose  any  jury  is  going  to 
take  enough  expert  testimony  to  outweigh  the 
tragedy  of  a  beautiful  woman?  Do?  Why,  they 
can  ruin  me,  even  if  I  get  a  verdict  of  acquittal. 
They  can  leave  me  with  a  reputation  for  careless- 
ness that  no  mere  court  decision  can  ever  over- 
come." 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  95 

" Gregory,  you  can  rely  on  me,"  said  Kennedy. 
"Anything  I  can  do  to  help  you  I  will  gladly  do. 
Jameson  and  I  were  on  the  point  of  going  out  to 
dinner.  Join  us,  and  after  that  we  will  go  down 
to  your  office  and  talk  things  over." 

"You  are  really  too  kind,"  murmured  the  doc- 
tor. The  air  of  relief  that  was  written  on  his 
face  was  pathetically  eloquent. 

"Now  not  a  word  about  the  case  till  we  have 
had  dinner,"  commanded  Craig.  "I  see  very 
plainly  that  you  have  been  worrying  about  the 
blow  for  a  long  time.  Well,  it  has  fallen.  The 
next  thing  to  do  is  to  look  over  the  situation  and 
see  where  we  stand." 

Dinner  over,  we  rode  down-town  in  the  subway, 
and  Gregory  ushered  us  into  an  office-building 
on  Madison  Avenue,  where  he  had  a  very  hand- 
some suite  of  several  rooms.  We  sat  down  in  his 
waiting-room  to  discuss  the  affair. 

"It  is  indeed  a  very  tragic  case,"  began  Ken- 
nedy, "almost  more  tragic  than  if  the  victim  had 
been  killed  outright.  Mrs.  Huntington  Close  is 
— or  rather  I  suppose  I  should  say  was — one  of 
the  famous  beauties  of  the  city.  From  what  the 
paper  says,  her  beauty  has  been  hopelessly  ruined 
by  this  dermatitis,  which,  I  understand,  Doctor, 
is  practically  incurable." 

Dr.  Gregory  nodded,  and  I  could  not  help  fol- 
lowing his  eyes  as  he  looked  at  his  own  rough  and 
scarred  hands. 


96  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"Also,"  continued  Craig,  with  his  eyes  half 
closed  and  his  finger-tips  together,  as  if  he  were 
taking  a  mental  inventory  of  the  facts  in  the  case, 
"her  nerves  are  so  shattered  that  she  will  be 
years  in  recovering,  if  she  ever  recovers. " 

1  'Yes,*'  said  the  doctor  simply.  "I  myself,  for 
instance,  am  subject  to  the  most  unexpected  at- 
tacks of  neuritis.  But,  of  course,  I  am  under  the 
influence  of  the  rays  fifty  or  sixty  times  a  day, 
while  she  had  only  a  few  treatments  at  intervals 
of  many  days." 

"Now,  on  the  other  hand,"  resumed  Craig,  "I 
know  you,  Gregory,  very  well.  Only  the  other 
day,  before  any  of  this  came  out,  you  told  me  the 
whole  story  with  your  fears  as  to  the  outcome.  I 
know  that  that  lawyer  of  Close's  has  been  keeping 
this  thing  hanging  over  your  head  for  a  long 
time.  And  I  also  know  that  you  are  one  of  the 
most  careful  X-ray  operators  in  the  city.  If  this 
suit  goes  against  you,  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
men  of  science  in  America  will  be  ruined.  Now, 
having  said  this  much,  let  me  ask  you  to  describe 
just  exactly  what  treatments  you  gave  Mrs. 
Close." 

The  doctor  led  us  into  his  X-ray  room  adjoin- 
ing. A  number  of  X-ray  tubes  were  neatly  put 
away  in  a  great  glass  case,  and  at  one  end  of  the 
room  was  an  operating-table  with  an  X-ray  ap- 
paratus suspended  over  it.  A  glance  at  the  room 
showed  that  Kennedy's  praise  was  not  exag- 
gerated. 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  97 

"How  many  treatments  did  you  give  Mrs. 
Close  ? ' '  asked  Kennedy. 

"Not  over  a  dozen,  I  should  say,"  replied 
Gregory.  "I  have  a  record  of  them  and  the 
dates,  which  I  will  give  you  presently.  Certainly 
they  were  not  numerous  enough  or  frequent 
enough  to  have  caused  a  dermatitis  such  as  she 
has.  Besides,  look  here.  I  have  an  apparatus 
which,  for  safety  to  the  patient,  has  few  equals 
in  the  country.  This  big  lead-glass  bowl,  which 
is  placed  over  my  X-ray  tube  when  in  use,  cuts  off 
the  rays  at  every  point  except  exactly  where  they 
are  needed. ' ' 

He  switched  on  the  electric  current,  and  the  ap: 
paratus  began  to  sputter.  The  pungent  odour  of 
ozone  from  the  electric  discharge  filled  the  room. 
Through  the  lead-glass  bowl  I  could  see  the  X-ray 
tube  inside  suffused  with  its  peculiar,  yellowish- 
green  light,  divided  into  two  hemispheres  of  dif- 
ferent shades.  That,  I  knew,  was  the  cathode 
ray,  not  the  X-ray,  for  the  X-ray  itself,  which 
streams  outside  the  tube,  is  invisible  to  the  human 
eye.  The  doctor  placed  in  our  hands  a  couple  of 
fluoroscopes,  an  apparatus  by  which  X-rays  can  be 
detected.  It  consists  simply  of  a  closed  box  with 
an  opening  to  which  the  eyes  are  placed.  The 
opposite  end  of  the  box  is  a  piece  of  board  coated 
with  a  salt  such  as  platino-barium  cyanide. 
"When  the  X-ray  strikes  this  salt  it  makes  it  glow, 
or  fluoresce,  and  objects  held  between  the  X-ray 
tube  and  the  fluoroscope  cast  shadows  according 


98  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

to  the  density  of  the  parts  which  the  X-rays  pene- 
trate. 

With  the  lead-glass  bowl  removed,  the  X-ray 
tube  sent  forth  its  wonderful  invisible  radiation 
and  made  the  back  of  the  fluoroscope  glow  with 
light.  I  could  see  the  bones  of  my  fingers  as  I  held 
them  up  between  the  X-ray  tube  and  the  fluoro- 
scope. But  with  the  lead-glass  bowl  in  position 
over  the  tube,  the  fluoroscope  was  simply  a  black 
box  into  which  I  looked  and  saw  nothing.  So 
very  little  of  the  radiation  escaped  from  the  bowl 
that  it  was  negligible — except  at  one  point  where 
there  was  an  opening  in  the  bottom  of  the  bowl 
to  allow  the  rays  to  pass  freely  through  exactly 
on  the  spot  on  the  patient  where  they  were  to  be 
used. 

"The  dermatitis,  they  say,  has  appeared  all 
over  her  body,  particularly  on  her  head  and 
shoulders,"  added  Dr.  Gregory.  "Now  I  have 
shown  you  my  apparatus  to  impress  on  you  how 
really  impossible  it  would  have  been  for  her  to 
contract  it  from  her  treatments  here.  I've  made 
thousands  of  exposures  with  never  an  X-ray  burn 
before — except  to  myself.  As  for  myself,  I'm  as 
careful  as  I  can  be,  but  you  can  see  I  am  under 
the  rays  very  often,  while  the  patient  is  only 
under  them  once  in  a  while." 

To  illustrate  his  care  he  pointed  out  to  us  a 
cabinet  directly  back  of  the  operating-table,  lined 
with  thick  sheets  of  lead.  From  this  cabinet  he 


THE   DEADLY  TUBE  99 

conducted  most  of  his  treatments  as  far  as  pos- 
sible. A  little  peep-hole  enabled  him  to  see  the 
patient  and  the  X-ray  apparatus,  while  an  ar- 
rangement of  mirrors  and  a  fluorescent  screen  en- 
abled him  to  see  exactly  what  the  X-rays  were 
disclosing,  without  his  leaving  the  lead-lined  cab- 
inet. 

"I  can  think  of  no  more  perfect  protection  for 
either  patient  or  operator,"  said  Kennedy  ad- 
miringly. "By  the  way,  did  Mrs.  Close  come 
alone?" 

"No,  the  first  time  Mr.  Close  came  with 
her.  After  that,  she  came  with  her  French 
maid." 

The  next  day  we  paid  a  visit  to  Mrs.  Close  her- 
self at  the  private  hospital.  Kennedy  had  been 
casting  about  in  his  mind  for  an  excuse  to  see  her, 
and  I  had  suggested  that  we  go  as  reporters  from 
the  Star.  Fortunately  after  sending  up  my  card 
on  which  I  had  written  Craig's  name  we  were  at 
length  allowed  to  go  up  to  her  room. 

We  found  the  patient  reclining  in  an  easy 
chair,  swathed  in  bandages,  a  wreck  of  her 
former  self.  I  felt  the  tragedy  keenly.  All  that 
social  position  and  beauty  had  meant  to  her  had 
been  suddenly  blasted. 

"You  will  pardon  my  presumption,"  began 
Craig,  "but,  Mrs.  Close,  I  assure  you  that  I  am 
actuated  by  the  best  of  motives.  We  represent 
the  New  York  Star—" 


100  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

''Isn't  it  terrible  enough  that  I  should  suffer 
so,"  she  interrupted,  "but  must  the  newspapers 
hound  me,  too?" 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Mrs.  Close,"  said  Craig, 
"but  you  must  be  aware  that  the  news  of  your 
suit  of  Dr.  Gregory  has  now  become  public  prop- 
erty. I  couldn't  stop  the  Star,  much  less  the 
other  papers,  from  talking  about  it.  But  I  can 
and  will  do  this,  Mrs.  Close.  I  will  see  that  jus- 
tice is  done  to  you  and  all  others  concerned.  Be- 
lieve me,  I  am  not  here  as  a  yellow  journalist  to 
make  newspaper  copy  out  of  your  misfortune. 
I  am  here  to  get  at  the  truth  sympathetically. 
Incidentally,  I  may  be  able  to  render  you  a  serv- 
ice, too." 

"You  can  render  me  no  service  except  to  ex- 
pedite the'  suit  against  that  careless  doctor — I 
hate  him." 

"Perhaps,"  said  Craig.  "But  suppose  some- 
one else  should  be  proved  to  have  been  really 
responsible?  Would  you  still  want  to  press  the 
suit  and  let  the  guilty  person  escape?" 

She  bit  her  lip.  "What  is  it  you  want  of  me ? " 
she  asked. 

"I  merely  want  permission  to  visit  your  rooms 
at  your  home  and  to  talk  with  your  maid.  I  do 
not  mean  to  spy  on  you,  far  from  it ;  but  consider, 
Mrs.  Close,  if  I  should  be  able  to  get  at  the  bot- 
tom of  this  thing,  find  out  the  real  cause  of  your 
misfortune,  perhaps  show  that  you  are  the  victim 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  101 

of  a  cruel  wrong  rather  than  of  carelessness, 
would  you  not  be  willing  to  let  me  go  ahead?  I 
am  frank  to  tell  you  that  I  suspect  there  is  more 
to  this  affair  than  you  yourself  have  any  idea  of." 

"No,  you  are  mistaken,  Mr.  Kennedy.  I  know 
the  cause  of  it.  It  was  my  love  of  beauty.  I 
couldn't  resist  the  temptation  to  get  rid  of  even  a 
slight  defect.  If  I  had  left  well  enough  alone  I 
should  not  be  here  now.  A  friend  recommended 
Dr.  Gregory  to  my  husband,  who  took  me  there. 
My  husband  wishes  me  to  remain  at  home,  but  I 
tell  him  I  feel  more  comfortable  here  in  the  hos- 
pital. I  shall  never  go  to  that  house  again — the 
memory  of  the  torture  of  sleepless  nights  in  my 
room  there  when  I  felt  my  good  looks  going, 
going " — she  shuddered — "is  such  that  I  can 
never  forget  it.  He  says  I  would  be  better  off 
there,  but  no,  I  cannot  go.  Still,"  she  continued 
wearily,  "there  can  be  no  harm  in  your  talking  to 
my  maid." 

Kennedy  noted  attentively  what  she  was  say- 
ing. "I  thank  you,  Mrs.  Close,"  he  replied.  "I 
am  sure  you  will  not  regret  your  permission. 
Would  you  be  so  kind  as  to  give  me  a  note  to 
her?" 

She  rang,  dictated  a  short  note  to  a  nurse, 
signed  it,  and  languidly  dismissed  us. 

I  don't  know  that  I  ever  felt  as  depressed  as  I 
did  after  that  interview  with  one  who  had  en- 
tered a  living  death  to  ambition,  for  while  Craig 


102  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

had  done  all  the  talking  I  had  absorbed  nothing 
but  depression.  I  vowed  that  if  Gregory  or  any- 
body else  was  responsible  I  would  do  my  share 
toward  bringing  on  him  retribution. 

The  Closes  lived  in  a  splendid  big  house  in  the 
Murray  Hill  section.  The  presentation  of  the 
note  quickly  brought  Mrs.  Close's  maid  down  to 
us.  She  had  not  gone  to  the  hospital  because 
Mrs.  Close  had  considered  the  services  of  the 
trained  nurses  quite  sufficient. 

Yes,  the  maid  had  noticed  how  her  mistress 
had  been  failing,  had  noticed  it  long  ago,  in  fact 
almost  at  the  time  when  she  had  begun  the  X-ray 
treatment.  She  had  seemed  to  improve  once 
when  she  went  away  for  a  few  days,  but  that  was 
at  the  start,  and  directly  after  her  return  she 
grew  worse  again,  until  she  was  no  longer  her- 
self. 

"Did  Dr.  Gregory,  the  X-ray  specialist,  ever 
attend  Mrs.  Close  at  her  home,  in  her  room?" 
asked  Craig. 

"Yes,  once,  twice,  he  call,  but  he  do  no  good,'* 
she  said  with  her  French  accent. 

"Did  Mrs.  Close  have  other  callers?" 

"But,  m'sieur,  everyone  in  society  has  many. 
What  does  m'sieur  mean?" 

"Frequent  callers — a  Mr.  Lawrence,  for  in- 
stance?" 

"Oh,  yes,  Mr.  Lawrence  frequently." 

"When  Mr.  Close  was  at  home?" 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  103 

"Yes,  on  business  and  on  business,  too,  when 
he  was  not  at  home.  He  is  the  attorney, 
m'sieur." 

"How  did  Mrs.  Close  receive  him?" 

"He  is  the  attorney,  m'sieur, "  Marie  repeated 
persistently. 

"And  he,  did  he  always  call  on  business?" 

"Oh,  yes,  always  on  business,  but — well, 
madame,  she  was  a  very  beautiful  woman.  Per- 
haps he  like  beautiful  women — eh  bien°!  That 
was  before  the  Doctor  Gregory  treated  madame. 
After  the  doctor  treated  madame  M'sieur 
Lawrence  do  not  call  so  often.  That's  all." 

"Are  you  thoroughly  devoted  to  Mrs.  Close? 
Would  you  do  a  favour  for  her?"  asked  Craig 
pointblank. 

"Sir,  I  would  give  my  life,  almost,  for  madame. 
She  was  always  so  good  to  me." 

"I  don't  ask  you  to  give  your  life  for  her, 
Marie,"  said  Craig,  "but  you  can  do  her  a  great 
service,  a  very  great  service." 

"I  will  do  it." 

"To-night,"  said  Craig,  "I  want  you  to  sleep 
in  Mrs.  Close 's  room.  You  can  do  so,  for  I  know 
that  Mr.  Close  is  living  at  the  St.  Francis  Club 
until  his  wife  returns  from  the  sanitarium.  To- 
morrow morning  come  to  my  laboratory" — Craig 
handed  her  his  card — "and  I  will  tell  you  what 
to  do  next.  By  the  way,  don't  say  anything  to 
anyone  in  the  house  about  it,  and  keep  a  sharp 


104  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

watch  on  the  actions  of  any  of  the  servants  who 
may  go  into  Mrs.  Close's  room." 

"Well,"  said  Craig,  " there  is  nothing  more 
to  be  done  immediately."  We  had  once  more  re- 
gained the  street  and  were  walking  up-town.  We 
walked  in  silence  for  several  blocks."' 

"Yes,"  mused  Craig,  "there  is  something  you 
can  do,  after  all,  Walter.  I  would  like  you  to 
look  up  Gregory  and  Close  and  Lawrence.  I  al- 
ready know  something  about  them.  But  you  can 
find  out  a  good  deal  with  your  newspaper  connec- 
tions. I  would  like  to  have  every  bit  of  scandal 
that  has  ever  been  connected  with  them,  or  with 
Mrs.  Close,  or,"  he  added  significantly,  "with 
any  other  woman.  It  isn't  necessary  to  say  that 
not  a  breath  of  it  must  be  published — yet." 

I  found  a  good  deal  of  gossip,  but  very  little 
of  it,  indeed,  seemed  to  me  at  the  time  to  be  of 
importance.  Dropping  in  at  the  St.  Francis 
Club,  where  I  had  some  friends,  I  casually  men- 
tioned the  troubles  of  the  Huntington  Closes.  I 
was  surprised  to  learn  that  Close  spent  little  of 
his  time  at  the  Club,  none  at  home,  and  only 
dropped  into  the  hospital  to  make  formal  inquir- 
ies as  to  his  wife's  condition.  It  then  occurred 
to  me  to  drop  into  the  office  of  Society  Squibs, 
whose  editor  I  had  long  known.  The  editor  told 
me,  with  that  nameless  look  of  the  cynical  scan- 
dalmonger, that  if  I  wanted  to  learn  anything 
about  Huntington  Close  I  had  best  watch  Mrs. 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  105 

Frances  Tulkington,  a  very  wealthy  Western  di- 
vorcee about  whom  the  smart  set  were  much  ex- 
cited, particularly  those  whose  wealth  made  it 
difficult  to  stand  the  pace  of  society  as  it  was 
going  at  present. 

"And  before  the  tragedy,"  said  the  editor  with 
another  nameless  look,  as  if  he  were  imparting  a 
most  valuable  piece  of  gossip,  "it  was  the  talk  of 
the  town,  the  attention  that  Close's  lawyer  was 
paying  to  Mrs.  Close.  But  to  her  credit  let  me 
say  that  she  never  gave  us  a  chance  to  hint  at 
anything,  and- — well,  you  know  us;  we  don't  need 
much  to  make  snappy  society  news." 

The  editor  then  waxed  even  more  confidential, 
for  if  I  am  anything  at  all,  I  am  a  good  listener, 
and  I  have  found  that  often  by  sitting  tight  and 
listening  I  can  get  more  than  if  I  were  a  too- 
eager  questioner. 

"It  really  was  a  shame  the  way  that  man 
Lawrence  played  his  game,"  he  went  on.  "I 
understand  that  it  was  he  who  introduced  Close 
to  Mrs.  T.  They  were  both  his  clients. 
Lawrence  had  fought  her  case  in  the  courts  when 
she  sued  old  Tulkington  for  divorce,  and  a  hand- 
some settlement  he  got  for  her,  too.  They  say 
his  fee  ran  up  into  the  hundred  thousands — con- 
tingent, you  know.  I  don't  know  what  his  game 
was" — here  he  lowered  his  voice  to  a  whisper — 
"but  they  say  Close  owes  him  a  good  deal  of 
money.  You  can  figure  it  out  for  yourself  as  you 


106  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

like.  Now,  I've  told  you  all  I  know.  Come  in 
again,  Jameson,  when  you  want  some  more  scan- 
dal, and  remember  me  to  the  boys  down  on  the 
Star." 

The  following  day  the  maid  visited  Kennedy 
at  his  laboratory  while  I  was  reporting  to  him  on 
the  result  of  my  investigations. 

She  looked  worn  and  haggard.  She  had  spent 
a  sleepless  night  and  begged  that  Kennedy  would 
not  ask  her  to  repeat  the  experiment. 

"I  can  promise  you,  Marie,"  he  said,  "that 
you  will  rest  better  to-night.  But  you  must 
spend  one  more  night  in  Mrs.  Close's  room.  By 
the  way,  can  you  arrange  for  me  to  go  through 
the  room  this  morning  when  you  go  back?" 

Marie  said  she  could,  and  an  hour  or  so  later 
Craig  and  I  quietly  slipped  into  the  Close  resi- 
dence under  her  guidance.  He  was  carrying 
something  that  looked  like  a  miniature  barrel, 
and  I  had  another  package  which  he  had  given 
me,  both  carefully  wrapped  up.  The  butler  eyed 
us  suspiciously,  but  Marie  spoke  a  few  words  to 
him  and  I  think  showed  him  Mrs.  Close's  note. 
Anyhow  he  said  nothing. 

Within  the  room  that  the  unfortunate  woman 
had  occupied  Kennedy  took  the  coverings  off  the 
packages.  It  was  nothing  but  a  portable  electric 
vacuum  cleaner,  which  he  quickly  attached  and 
set  running.  Up  and  down  the  floor,  around  and 
under  the  bed  he  pushed  the  cleaner.  He  used 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  107 

the  various  attachments  to  clean  the  curtains,  the 
walls,  and  even  the  furniture.  Particularly  did 
he  pay  attention  to  the  base  board  on  the  wall 
back  of  the  bed.  Then  he  carefully  removed  the 
dust  from  the  cleaner  and  sealed  it  up  in  a  leaden 
box. 

He  was  about  to  detach  and  pack  up  the  cleaner 
when  another  idea  seemed  to  occur  to  him. 
"  Might  as  well  make  a  thorough  job  of  it,  Wal- 
ter," he  said,  adjusting  the  apparatus  again. 
"I've  cleaned  everything  but  the  mattress  and 
the  brass  bars  behind  the  mattress  on  the  bed. 
Now  I'll  tackle  them.  I  think  we  ought  to  go  into 
the  suction-cleaning  business — more  money  in  it 
than  in  being  a  detective,  I'll  bet." 

The  cleaner  was  run  over  and  under  the  mat- 
tress and  along  every  crack  and  cranny  of  the 
brass  bed.  This  done  and  this  dust  also  care- 
fully stowed  away,  we  departed,  very  much  to  the 
mystification  of  Marie  and,  I  could  not  help  feel- 
ing, of  other  eyes  that  peered  in  through  keyholes 
or  cracks  in  doors. 

"At  any  rate,"  said  Kennedy  exultingly,  "I 
think  we  have  stolen  a  march  on  them.  I  don't 
believe  they  were  prepared  for  this,  not  at  least 
at  this  stage  in  the  game.  Don't  ask  me  any 
questions,  Walter.  Then  you  will  have  no  secrets 
to  keep  if  anyone  should  try  to  pry  them  loose. 
Only  remember  that  this  man  Lawrence  is  a 
shrewd  character." 


108  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

The  next  day  Marie  came,  looking  even  more 
careworn  than  before. 

" What's  the  matter,  mademoiselle?"  asked 
Craig.  "Didn't  you  pass  a  better  night?" 

"Oh,  mon  Dieu,  I  rest  well,  yes.  But  this 
morning,  while  I  am  at  breakfast,  Mr.  Close  send 
for  me.  He  say  that  I  am  discharged.  Some 
servant  tell  of  your  visit  and  he  ver-ry  angr-ry. 
And  now  what  is  to  become  of  me — will  madame 
his  wife  give  a  recommendation  now?" 

"Walter,  we  have  been  discovered,"  exclaimed 
Craig  with  considerable  vexation.  Then  he  re- 
membered the  poor  girl  who  had  been  an  involun- 
tary sacrifice  to  our  investigation.  Turning  to 
her  he  said:  "Marie,  I  know  several  very  good 
families,  and  I  am  sure  you  will  not  suffer  for 
what  you  have  done  by  being  faithful  to  your  mis- 
tress. Only  be  patient  a  few  days.  Go  live  with 
some  of  your  folks.  I  will  see  that  you  are 
placed  again." 

The  girl  was  profuse  in  her  thanks  as  she  dried 
her  tears  and  departed. 

"I  hadn't  anticipated  having  my  hand  forced 
so  soon,"  said  Craig  after  she  had  gone,  leaving 
her  address.  "However,  we  are  on  the  right 
track.  What  was  it  that  you  were  going  to  tell 
me  when  Marie  came  in?" 

"Something  that  may  be  very  important, 
Craig, ' '  I  said, ' '  though  I  don 't  understand  it  my- 
self. Pressure  is  being  brought  to  beaj  on  the 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  109 

Star  to  keep  this  thing  out  of  the  papers,  or  at 
least  to  minimise  it." 

1  'I'm  not  surprised,"  commented  Craig. 
"What  do  you  mean  by  pressure  being  brought?" 

"Why,  Close's  lawyer,  Lawrence,  called  up  the 
editor  this  morning — I  don't  suppose  that  you 
know,  but  he  has  some  connection  with  the  inter- 
ests which  control  the  Star — and  said  that  the  ac- 
tivity of  one  of  the  reporters  from  the  Star, 
Jameson  by  name,  was  very  distasteful  to  Mr. 
Close  and  that  this  reporter  was  employing  a  man 
named  Kennedy  to  assist  him. 

"I  don't  understand  it,  Craig,"  I  confessed, 
"but  here  one  day  they  give  the  news  to  the 
papers,  and  two  days  later  they  almost  threaten 
us  with  suit  if  we  don't  stop  publishing  it." 

"It  is  perplexing,"  said  Craig,  with  the  air  of 
one  who  was  not  a  bit  perplexed,  but  rather  en- 
lightened. 

He  pulled  down  the  district  telegraph  messen- 
ger lever  three  times,  and  we  sat  in  silence  for  a 
while. 

"However,"  he  resumed,  "I  shall  be  ready  for 
them  to-night." 

I  said  nothing.  Several  minutes  elapsed. 
Then  the  messenger  rapped  on  the  door. 

"I  want  these  two  notes  delivered  right  away," 
said  Craig  to  the  boy;  "here's  a  quarter  for  you. 
Now  mind  you  don't  get  interested  in  a  detective 
story  and  forget  the  notes.  If  you  are  back  here 


110  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

quickly  with  the  receipts  I'll  give  you  another 
quarter.  Now  scurry  along. " 

Then,  after  the  boy  had  gone,  he  said  casually 
to  me:  "Two  notes  to  Close  and  Gregory,  asking 
them  to  be  present  with  their  attorneys  to-night. 
Close  will  bring  Lawrence,  and  Gregory  will 
bring  a  young  lawyer  named  Asche,  a  very  clever 
fellow.  The  notes  are  so  worded  that  they  can 
hardly  refuse  the  invitation." 

Meanwhile  I  carried  out  an  assignment  for  the 
Star,  and  telephoned  my  story  in  so  as  to  be  sure 
of  being  with  Craig  at  the  crucial  moment.  For 
I  was  thoroughly  curious  about  his  next  move  in 
the  game.  I  found  him  still  in  his  laboratory  at- 
taching two  coils  of  thin  wire  to  the  connections 
on  the  outside  of  a  queer-looking  little  black  box. 

"What's  that?"  I  asked,  eyeing  the  sinister- 
looking  little  box  suspiciously.  "An  infernal  ma- 
chine?1 You're  not  going  to  blow  the  culprit  into 
eternity,  I  hope." 

"Never  mind  what  it  is,  Walter.  You'll  find 
that  out  in  due  time.  It  may  or  it  may  not  be  an 
infernal  machine — of  a  different  sort  than  any 
you  have  probably  ever  heard  of.  The  less  you 
know  now  the  less  likely  you  are  to  give  anything 
away  by  a  look  or  an  act.  Come  now,  make 
yourself  useful  as  well  as  ornamental.  Take 
these  wires  and  lay  them  in  the  cracks  of  the  floor, 
and  be  careful  not  to  let  them  show.  A  little 
dust  over  them  will  conceal  them  beautifully." 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  111 

Craig  now  placed  the  black  box  back  of  one  of 
the  chairs  well  down  toward  the  floor,  where  it 
could  hardly  have  been  perceived  unless  one  were 
suspecting  something  of  the  sort.  While  he  was 
doing  so  I  ran  the  wires  across  the  floor,  and 
around  the  edge  of  the  room  to  the  door. 

"There,"  he  said,  taking  the  wires  from  me. 
"Now  I'll  complete  the  job  by  carrying  them  into 
the  next  room.  And  while  I'm  doing  it,  go  over 
the  wires  again  and  make  sure  they  are  abso- 
lutely concealed." 

That  night  six  men  gathered  in  Kennedy's  lab- 
oratory. In  my  utter  ignorance  of  what  was 
about  to  happen  I  was  perfectly  calm,  and  so  were 
all  the  rest,  except  Gregory.  He  was  easily  the 
most  nervous  of  us  all,  though  his  lawyer  Asche 
tried  repeatedly  to  reassure  him. 

"Mr.  Close,"  began  Kennedy,  "if  you  and  Mr. 
Lawrence  will  sit  over  here  on  this  side  of  the 
room  while  Dr.  Gregory  and  Mr.  Asche  sit  on  the 
opposite  side  with  Mr.  Jameson  in  the  middle,  I 
think  both  of  you  opposing  parties  will  be  better 
suited.  For  I  apprehend  that  at  various  stages 
in  what  I  am  about  to  say  both  you,  Mr.  Close, 
and  you,  Dr.  Gregory,  will  want  to  consult  your 
attorneys.  That,  of  course,  would  be  embarrass- 
ing, if  not  impossible,  should  you  be  sitting  near 
each  other.  Now,  if  we  are  ready,  I  shall  begin." 

Kennedy  placed  a  small  leaden  casket  on  the 
table  of  his  lecture  hall.  "In  this  casket,"  he 


112  THE  SILENT  BULLET 

commenced  solemnly,  "there  is  a  certain  sub- 
stance which  I  have  recovered  from  the  dust 
swept  up  by  a  vacuum  cleaner  in  the  room  of  Mrs. 
.Close." 

One  could  feel  the  very  air  of  the  room  sur- 
charged with  excitement.  Craig  drew  on  a  pair 
of  gloves  and  carefully  opened  the  casket.  With 
his  thumb  and  forefinger  he  lifted  out  a  glass  tube 
and  held  it  gingerly  at  arm's  length.  My  eyes 
were  riveted  on  it,  for  the  bottom  of  the  tube 
glowed  with  a  dazzling  point  of  light. 

Both  Gregory  and  his  attorney  and  Close  and 
Lawrence  whispered  to  each  other  when  the  tube 
was  displayed,  as  indeed  they  did  throughout  the 
whole  exhibition  of  Kennedy's  evidence. 

"No  infernal  machine  was  ever  more  subtle," 
said  Craig,  "than  the  tube  which  I  hold  in  my 
hand.  The  imagination  of  the  most  sensational 
writer  of  fiction  might  well  be  thrilled  with  the 
mysteries  of  this  fatal  tube  and  its  power  to  work 
fearful  deeds.  A  larger  quantity  of  this  sub- 
stance in  the  tube  would  produce  on  me,  as  I  now 
hold  it,  incurable  burns,  just  as  it  did  on  its  dis- 
coverer before  his  death.  A  smaller  amount,  of 
course,  would  not  act  so  quickly.  The  amount  in 
this  tube,  if  distributed  about,  would  produce  the 
burns  inevitably,  providing  I  remained  near 
enough  for  a  long-enough  time." 

Craig  paused  a  moment  to  emphasise  his  re- 
marks. 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  113 

"Here  in  my  hand,  gentlemen,  I  hold  the  price 
of  a  woman's  beauty.'' 

He  stopped  again  for  several  moments,  then  re- 
sumed. 

' '  And  now,  having  shown  it  to  you,  for  my  own 
safety  I  will  place  it  back  in  its  leaden  casket." 

Drawing  off  his  gloves,  he  proceeded. 

"I  have  found  out  by  a  cablegram  to-day  that 
seven  weeks  ago  an  order  for  one  hundred  milli- 
grams of  radium  bromide  at  thirty-five  dollars 
a  milligram  from  a  certain  person  in  America 
was  filled  by  a  corporation  dealing  in  this  sub- 
stance. " 

Kennedy  said  this  with  measured  words,  and  I 
felt  a  thrill  run  through  me  as  he  developed  his 
case. 

"At  that  same  time,  Mrs.  Close  began  a  se- 
ries of  treatments  with  an  X-ray  specialist  in 
New  York,"  pursued  Kennedy.  "Now,  it  is  not 
generally  known  outside  scientific  circles,  but  the 
fact  is  that  in  their  physiological  effects  the 
X-ray  and  radium  are  quite  one  and  the  same. 
Eadium  possesses  this  advantage,  however,  that 
no  elaborate  apparatus  is  necessary  for  its  use. 
And,  in  addition,  the  emanation  from  radium  is 
steady  and  constant,  whereas  the  X-ray  at  best 
varies  slightly  with  changing  conditions  of  the 
current  and  vacuum  in  the  X-ray  tube.  Still,  the 
effects  on  the  body  are  much  the  same. 

'  *  A  few  days  before  this  order  was  placed  I  re- 


114  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

call  the  following  despatch  which  appeared  in  the 
New  York  papers.    I  will  read  it : 

"  'Liege,  Belgium,  Oct.  — ,  1910.  What  is  believed 
to  be  the  first  criminal  case  in  which  radium  figures  as  a 
death-dealing  agent  is  engaging  public  attention  at  this 
university  town.  A  wealthy  old  bachelor,  Pailin  by 
name,  was  found  dead  in  his  flat.  A  stroke  of  apoplexy 
was  at  first  believed  to  have  caused  his  death,  but  a  close 
examination  revealed  a  curious  discolouration  of  his  skin. 
A  specialist  called  in  to  view  the  body  gave  as  his  opinion 
that  the  old  man  had  been  exposed  for  a  long  time  to  the 
emanations  of  X-ray  or  radium.  The  police  theory  is 
that  M.  Pailin  was  done  to  death  by  a  systematic  applica- 
tion of  either  X-rays  or  radium  by  a  student  in  the  uni- 
versity who  roomed  next  to  him.  The  student  has  dis- 
appeared/ 

"Now  here,  I  believe,  was  the  suggestion  which 
this  American  criminal  followed,  for  I  cut  it  out 
of  the  paper  rather  expecting  sooner  or  later  that 
some  clever  person  would  act  on  it.  I  have 
thoroughly  examined  the  room  of  Mrs.  Close. 
She  herself  told  me  she  never  wanted  to  return 
to  it,  that  her  memory  of  sleepless  nights  in  it 
was  too  vivid.  That  served  to  fix  the  impression 
that  I  had  already  formed  from  reading  this  clip- 
ping. Either  the  X-ray  or  radium  had  caused 
her  dermatitis  and  nervousness.  Which  was  it? 
I  wished  to  be  sure  that  I  would  make  no  mistake. 
Of  course  I  knew  it  was  useless  to  look  for  an 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  115 

X-ray  machine  in  or  near  Mrs.  Close's  room. 
Such  a  thing  could  never  have  been  concealed. 
The  alternative?  Kadium!  Ah !  that  was  differ- 
ent. I  determined  on  an  experiment.  Mrs. 
Close's  maid  was  prevailed  on  to  sleep  in  her  mis- 
tress's room.  Of  course  radiations  of  brief  du- 
ration would  do  her  no  permanent  harm,  although 
they  would  produce  their  effect,  nevertheless.  In 
one  night  the  maid  became  extremely  nervous. 
If  she  had  stayed  under  them  several  nights  no 
doubt  the  beginning  of  a  dermatitis  would  have 
affected  her,  if  not  more  serious  trouble.  A  sys- 
tematic application,  covering  weeks  and  months, 
might  in  the  end  even  have  led  to  death. 

"The  next  day  I  managed,  as  I  have  said,  to  go 
over  the  room  thoroughly  with  a  vacuum  cleaner 
— a  new  one  of  my  own  which  I  had  bought  my- 
self. But  tests  of  the  dust  which  I  got  from  the 
floors,  curtains,  and  furniture  showed  nothing  at 
all.  As  a  last  thought  I  had,  however,  cleaned 
the  mattress  of  the  bed  and  the  cracks  and  crev- 
ices in  the  brass  bars.  Tests  of  that  dust  showed 
it  to  be  extremely  radioactive.  I  had  the  dust 
dissolved,  by  a  chemist  who  understands  that  sort 
of  thing,  recrystallised,  and  the  radium  salts  were 
extracted  from  the  refuse.  Thus  I  found  that  I 
had  recovered  all  but  a  very  few  milligrams  of 
the  radium  that  had  been  originally  purchased  in 
London.  Here  it  is  in  this  deadly  tube  in  the 
leaden  casket. 


116  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

"It  is  needless  to  add  that  the  night  after  I  had 
cleaned  out  this  deadly  element  the  maid  slept 
the  sleep  of  the  just — and  would  have  been  all 
right  when  next  I  saw  her  but  for  the  interfer- 
ence of  the  unjust  on  whom  I  had  stolen  a 
march." 

Craig  paused  while  the  lawyers  whispered 
again  to  their  clients.  Then  he  continued:  "Now 
three  persons  in  this  room  had  an  opportunity 
to  secrete  the  contents  of  this  deadly  tube  in  the 
crevices  of  the  metal  work  of  Mrs.  Close's  bed. 
One  of  these  persons  must  have  placed  an  order 
through  a  confidential  agent  in  London  to  pur- 
chase the  radium  from  the  English  Eadium  Cor- 
poration. One  of  these  persons  had  a  compelling 
motive,  something  to  gain  by  using  this  deadly 
element. 

"The  radium  in  this  tube  in  the  casket  was 
secreted,  as  I  have  said,  in  the  metal  work  of  Mrs. 
Close's  bed,  not  in  large  enough  quantities  to  be 
immediately  fatal,  but  mixed  with  dust  so  as  to 
produce  the  result  more  slowly  but  no  less  surely, 
and  thus  avoid  suspicion.  At  the  same  time  Mrs. 
Close  was  persuaded — I  will  not  say  by  whom — 
through  her  natural  pride,  to  take  a  course  of 
X-ray  treatment  for  a  slight  defect.  That  would 
further  serve  to  divert  suspicion.  The  fact  is 
that  a  more  horrible  plot  could  hardly  have  been 
planned  or  executed.  This  person  sought  to  ruin 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  117 

her  beauty  to  gain  a  most  selfish  and  despicable 
end." 

Again  Craig  paused  to  let  his  words  sink  into 
our  minds. 

"Now  I  wish  to  state  that  anything  you  gentle- 
men may  say  will  be  used  against  you.  That  is 
why  I  have  asked  you  to  bring  your  attorneys. 
You  may  consult  with  them,  of  course,  while  I  am 
getting  ready  my  next  disclosure." 

As  Kennedy  had  developed  his  points  in  the 
case  I  had  been  more  and  more  amazed.  But  I 
had  not  failed  to  notice  how  keenly  Lawrence  was 
following  him. 

With  half  a  sneer  on  his  astute  face,  Lawrence 
drawled:  "I  cannot  see  that  you  have  accom- 
plished anything  by  this  rather  extraordinary 
summoning  of  us  to  your  laboratory.  The  evi- 
dence is  just  as  black  against  Dr.  Gregory  as  be- 
fore. You  may  think  you're  clever,  Kennedy, 
but  on  the  very  statement  of  facts  as  you  have 
brought  them  out  there  is  plenty  of  circumstan- 
tial evidence  against  Gregory — more  than  there 
was  before.  As  for  anyone  else  in  the  room,  I 
can't  see  that  you  have  anything  on  us — unless 
perhaps  this  new  evidence  you  speak  of  may  im- 
plicate Asche,  or  Jameson,"  he  added,  including 
me  in  a  wave  of  his  hand,  as  if  he  were  already; 
addressing  a  jury.  "It's  my  opinion  that  twelve 
of  our  peers  would  be  quite  as  likely  to  bring  in  a 


118  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

verdict  of  guilty  against  them  as  against  anyone 
else  even  remotely  connected  with  this  case,  ex- 
cept Gregory.  No,  you'll  have  to  do  better  than 
this  in  your  next  case,  if  you  expect  to  maintain 
that  so-called  reputation  of  yours  for  being  a  pro- 
fessor of  criminal  science." 

As  for  Close,  taking  his  cue  from  his  attorney, 
he  scornfully  added:  "I  came  to  find  out  some 
new  evidence  against  the  wretch  who  wrecked  the 
beauty  of  my  wife.  All  I  Ve  got  is  a  tiresome  lec- 
ture on  X-rays  and  radium.  I  suppose  what  you 
say  is  true.  Well,  it  only  bears  out  what  I 
thought  before.  Gregory  treated  my  wife  at 
home,  after  he  saw  the  damage  his  office  treat- 
ments had  done.  I  guess  he  was  capable  of  mak- 
ing a  complete  job  out  of  it — covering  up  his  care- 
lessness by  getting  rid  of  the  woman  who  was 
such  a  damning  piece  of  evidence  against  his  pro- 
fessional skill. ' ' 

Never  a  shade  passed  Craig's  face  as  he  listened 
to  this  tirade.  "  Excuse  me  a  moment, "  was  all 
he  said,  opening  the  door  to  leave  the  room.  "I 
have  just  one  more  fact  to  disclose.  I  will  be 
back  directly. " 

Kennedy  was  gone  several  minutes,  during 
which  Close  and  Lawrence  fell  to  whispering  be- 
hind their  hands,  with  the  assurance  of  those  who 
believed  that  this  was  only  Kennedy's  method  of 
admitting  a  defeat.  Gregory  and  Asche  ex- 
changed a  few  words  similarly,  and  it  was  plain 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  119 

that  Asche  was  endeavouring  to  put  a  better  in- 
terpretation on  something  than  Gregory  himself 
dared  hope. 

As  Kennedy  re-entered,  Close  was  buttoning  up 
his  coat  preparatory  to  leaving,  and  Lawrence 
was  lighting  a  fresh  cigar. 

In  his  hand  Kennedy  held  a  notebook.  "My 
stenographer  writes  a  very  legible  shorthand;  at 
least  I  find  it  so — from  long  practice,  I  suppose. 
As  I  glance  over  her  notes  I  find  many  facts  which 
will  interest  you  later — at  the  trial.  But — ah, 
here  at  the  end — let  me  read : 

"  'Well,  he 'a  very  clever,  but  he  has  nothing  against 
me,  has  he  ? ' 

"  'No,  not  unless  he  can  produce  the  agent  who  bought 
the  radium  for  you.' 

"  'But  he  can't  do  that.  No  one  could  ever  have 
recognised  you  on  your  flying  trip  to  London  disguised 
as  a  diamond  merchant  who  had  just  learned  that  he 
could  make  his  faulty  diamonds  good  by  applications  of 
radium  and  who  wanted  a  good  stock  of  the  stuff.' 

"  'Still,  we'll  have  to  drop  the  suit  against  Gregory 
after  all,  in  spite  of  what  I  said.  That  part  is  hope- 
lessly spoiled.' 

"  'Yes,  I  suppose  so.  Oh,  well,  I'm  free  now.  She 
can  hardly  help  but  consent  to  a  divorce  now,  and  a 
quiet  settlement.  She  brought  it  on  herself — we  tried 
every  other  way  to  do  it,  but  she — she  was  too  good  to 
fall  into  it.  She  forced  us  to  it. ' 

"  'Yes,  you'll  get  a  good  divorce  now.  But  can't  we 
shut  up  this  man  Kennedy  ?  Even  if  he  can 't  prove  any- 


120  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

thing  against  us,  the  mere  rumour  of  such  a  thing  com- 
ing to  the  ears  of  Mrs.  Tulkington  would  be  unpleasant/ 

"  'Go  as  far  as  you  like,  Lawrence.  You  know  what 
the  marriage  will  mean  to  me.  It  will  settle  my  debts  to 
you  and  all  the  rest.' 

"  'I'll  see  what  I  can  do,  Close.  He'll  be  back  in  a 
moment.' ' 

Close's  face  was  livid.  "It's  a  pack  of  lies!" 
he  snouted,  advancing  toward  Kennedy,  "a  pack 
of  lies!  You  are  a  fakir  and  a  blackmailer.  I'll 
have  you  in  jail  for  this,  by  God — and  you  too, 
Gregory." 

"One  moment,  please,"  said  Kennedy  calmly. 
"Mr.  Lawrence,  will  you  be  so  kind  as  to  reach 
behind  your  chair?  What  do  you  find?" 

Lawrence  lifted  up  the  plain  black  box  and  with 
it  he  pulled  up  the  wires  which  I  had  so  carefully 
concealed  in  the  cracks  of  the  floor. 

"That,"  said  Kennedy,  "is  a  little  instrument 
called  the  microphone.  Its  chief  merit  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  will  magnify  a  sound  sixteen  hun- 
dred times,  and  carry  it  to  any  given  point 
where  you  wish  to  place  the  receiver.  Originally 
this  device  was  invented  for  the  aid  of  the  deaf, 
but  I  see  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  used  to 
aid  the  law.  One  needn't  eavesdrop  at  the  key- 
hole with  this  little  instrument  about.  Inside 
that  box  there  is  nothing  but  a  series  of  plugs 
from  which  wires,  much  finer  than  a  thread,  are 
stretched  taut.  Yet  a  fly  walking  near  it  will 


THE   DEADLY   TUBE  121 

make  a  noise  as  loud  as  a  draft-horse.  If  the 
microphone  is  placed  in  any  part  of  the  room,  es- 
pecially if  near  the  persons  talking — even  if  they 
are  talking  in  a  whisper — a  whisper  such  as  oc- 
curred several  times  during  the  evening  and  par- 
ticularly while  I  was  in  the  next  room  getting  the 
notes  made  by  my  stenographer — a  whisper,  I 
say,  is  like  shouting  your  guilt  from  the  house- 
tops. 

"You  two  men,  Close  and  Lawrence,  may  con- 
sider yourselves  under  arrest  for  conspiracy  and 
whatever  other  indictments  will  lie  against  such 
creatures  as  you.  The  police  will  be  here  in  a 
moment.  No,  Close,  violence  won't  do  now. 
The  doors  are  locked — and  see,  we  are  four  ta 
two." 


THE   SEISMOGBAPH   ADVENTTTBE 

"Du.  JAMES  HANSON,  Coroner's  Physician,  Crim- 
inal Courts  Building,"  read  Craig  Kennedy,  as 
he  held  a  visitor's  card  in  his  hand.  Then  to  the 
visitor  he  added,  "Take  a  chair,  Doctor." 

The  physician  thanked  him  and  sat  down. 
" Professor  Kennedy,"  he  began,  "I  have  been 
referred  to  you  by  Inspector  0  'Connor  of  the  De- 
tective Bureau.  It  may  seem  an  impertinence 
for  a  city  official  to  call  on  you  for  assistance,  but 
— well,  you  see,  I'm  completely  floored.  I  think, 
too,  that  the  case  will  interest  you.  It's  the  Van- 
dam  case." 

If  Dr.  Hanson  had  suddenly  turned  on  the  cur- 
rent of  an  induction  coil  and  I  had  been  holding 
the  handles  I  don't  think  the  thrill  I  received 
could  have  been  any  more  sudden.  The  Vandam 
case  was  the  sensation  of  the  moment,  a  triple 
puzzle,  as  both  Kennedy  and  myself  had  agreed. 
Was  it  suicide,  murder,  or  sudden  death?  Every 
theory,  so  far,  had  proved  unsatisfactory. 

"I  have  read  only  what  the  newspapers  have 
published,"  replied  Craig  to  the  doctor's  look  of 
inquiry.  "You  see,  my  friend  Jameson  here  is 

198 


THE   SEISMOGEAPH  ADVENTURE    123 

on  the  staff  of  the  Star,  and  we  are  in  the  habit 
of  discussing  these  cases." 

"Very  glad  to  meet  you,  Mr.  Jameson, "  ex- 
claimed Dr.  Hanson  at  the  implied  introduction. 
"The  relations  between  my  office  and  your  paper 
have  always  been  very  satisfactory,  I  can  assure 
you." 

"Thank  you,  Doctor.  Depend  on  me  to  keep 
them  so,"  I  replied,  shaking  his  proffered 
hand. 

"Now,  as  to  the  case,"  continued  the  doctor 
slowly.  "Here  is  a  beautiful  woman  in  the  prime 
of  life,  the  wife  of  a  very  wealthy  retired  banker 
considerably  older  than  herself — perhaps  nearly 
seventy — of  very  fine  family.  Of  course  you  have 
read  it  all,  but  let  me  sketch  it  so  you  will  look 
at  it  from  my  point  of  view.  This  woman,  ap- 
parently in  good  health,  with  every  luxury  money 
can  buy,  is  certain  within  a  very  few  years,  from 
her  dower  rights,  to  be  numbered  among  the  rich- 
est women  in  America.  Yet  she  is  discovered  in 
the  middle  of  the  night  by  her  maid,  seated  at 
the  table  in  the  library  of  her  home,  unconscious. 
She  never  regains  consciousness,  but  dies  the  fol- 
lowing morning. 

"The  coroner  is  called  in,  and,  as  his  physician, 
I  must  advise  him.  The  family  physician  has 
pronounced  it  due  to  natural  causes,  the  uremio 
coma  of  latent  kidney  trouble.  Some  of  the  news- 
papers, I  think  the  Star  among  them,  have  hinted 


124  ITHE   SILENT  BULLET 

at  suicide.  And  then  there  are  others,  who  have 
flatly  asserted  it  was  murder." 

The  coroner's  physician  paused  to  see  if  we 
were  following  him.  Needless  to  say  Kennedy 
was  ahead  of  him. 

4 'Have  you  any  facts  in  your  possession  which 
have  not  been  given  to  the  public  yet?"  asked 
Craig. 

"I'm  coming  to  that  in  a  moment,"  replied  Dr. 
Hanson.  "Let  me  sketch  the  case  first.  Henry 
Vandam  had  become — well,  very  eccentric  in  his 
old  age,  we  will  say.  Among  his  eccentricities 
none  seems  to  have  impressed  the  newspapers 
more  than  his  devotion  to  a  medium  and  her  man- 
ager, Mrs.  May  Popper  and  Mr.  Howard  Farring- 
ton.  Now,  of  course,  the  case  does  not  go  into 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  spiritualism,  you  under- 
stand. You  have  your  opinion,  and  I  have  mine. 
"What  this  aspect  of  the  case  involves  is  merely 
the  character  of  the  medium  and  her  manager. 
iYou  know,  of  course,  that  Henry  Vandam  is  com- 
pletely under  their  control." 

He  paused  again,  to  emphasise  the  point. 

"You  asked  me  if  I  was  in  possession  of  any 
[facts  which  have  not  been  given  to  the  press. 
[Yes,  I  am.  And  just  there  lies  the  trouble. 
They  are  so  very  conflicting  as  to  be  almost  worse 
than  useless,  as  far  as  I  can  see.  We  found  near 
the  unfortunate  woman  a  small  pill-box  with  three 
capsules  still  in  it.  It  was  labelled  'One  before 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH   ADVENTURE    125 

retiring'  and  bore  the  name  of  a  certain  druggist 
and  the  initials  'Dr.  G.  W.  H.'  Now,  I  am  con- 
vinced that  the  initials  are  merely  a  blind  and  do 
not  give  any  clue.  The  druggist  says  that  a  maid 
from  the  Vandam  house  brought  in  the  prescrip- 
tion, which  of  course  he  filled.  It  is  a  harmless 
enough  prescription — contains,  among  other 
things,  four  and  a  half  grains  of  quinine  and  one- 
sixth  of  a  grain  of  morphine.  Six  capsules  were 
prepared  altogether. 

"Now,  of  course  my  first  thought  was  that  she 
might  have  taken  several  capsules  at  once  and 
that  it  was  a  case  of  accidental  morphine  poison- 
ing, or  it  might  even  be  suicide.  But  it  cannot  be 
either,  to  my  mind,  for  only  three  of  the  six  cap- 
sules are  gone.  No  doubt,  also,  you  are  ac- 
quainted with  the  fact  that  the  one  invariable 
symptom  of  morphine  poisoning  is  the  contrac- 
tion of  the  pupils  of  the  eyes  to  a  pin-point—* 
often  so  that  they  are  unrecognisable.  Moreover, 
the  pupils  are  symmetrically  contracted,  and  this 
symptom  is  the  one  invariably  present  in  coma 
from  morphine  poisoning  and  distinguishes  it 
from  all  other  forms  of  death. 

"On  the  other  hand,  in  the  coma  of  kidney  dis- 
ease one  pupil  is  dilated  and  the  other  contracted 
'. — they  are  unsymmetrical.  But  in  this  case  both 
the  pupils  are  normal,  or  only  a  very  little  di- 
lated, and  they  are  symmetrical.  So  far  we  have 
been  able  to  find  no  other  poison  than  the  slight 


126  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

traces  of  morphine  remaining  in  the  stomach 
after  so  many  hours.  I  think  you  are  enough  of 
a  chemist  to  know  that  no  doctor  would  dare  go 
on  the  stand  and  swear  to  death  from  morphine 
poisoning  in  the  face  of  such  evidence  against 
him.  The  veriest  tyro  of  an  expert  toxicologist 
could  too  easily  confute  him." 

Kennedy  nodded.  "Have  you  the  pill-box  and 
the  prescription?" 

' 'I  have,"  replied  Dr.  Hanson,  placing  them  on 
the  table. 

Kennedy  scrutinised  them  sharply.  "I  shall 
need  these, ' '  he  said.  ' '  Of  course  you  understand 
I  will  take  very  good  care  of  them.  Is  there  any- 
thing else  of  importance?" 

"Really,  I  don't  know,"  said  the  physician  du- 
biously. "It's  rather  out  of  my  province,  but  per- 
haps you  would  think  it  important.  It's  mighty 
uncanny  anyhow.  Henry  Vandam,  as  you  doubt- 
less know,  was  much  more  deeply  interested  in 
the  work  of  this  medium  than  was  his  wife.  Per- 
haps Mrs.  Vandam  was  a  bit  jealous — I  don't 
know.  But  she,  too,  had  an  interest  in  spiritual- 
ism, though  he  was  much  more  deeply  influenced 
by  Mrs.  Popper  than  she. 

"Here's  the  strange  part  of  it.  The  old  man 
believes  so  thoroughly  in  rappings  and  material- 
isations that  he  constantly  keeps  a  notebook  in 
his  pocket  in  which  he  records  all  the  materialisa- 
tions he  thinks  he  sees  and  the  rappings  he  hears, 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH  ADVENTURE    127 

along  with  the  time  and  place.  Now  it  so  hap- 
pened that  on  the  night  Mrs.  Vandam  was  taken 
ill,  he  had  retired — I  believe  in  another  part  of 
the  house,  where  he  has  a  regular  seance-room. 
According  to  his  story,  he  was  awakened  from  a 
profound  sleep  by  a  series  of  rappings.  As  was 
his  custom,  he  noted  the  time  at  which  they  oc- 
curred. Something  made  him  uneasy,  and  he  said 
to  his  'control' — at  least  this  is  his  story: 

"  'John,  is  it  about  Mary?' 

" Three  raps  answered  'yes,'  the  usual  code. 

' '  '  What  is  the  matter  T    Is  she  ill  ? ' 

"  The  three  answering  raps  were  so  vigorous 
that  he  sprang  out  of  bed  and  called  for  his  wife's 
maid.  The  maid  replied  that  Mrs.  Vandam  had 
not  gone  to  bed  yet,  but  that  there  was  a  light  in 
the  library  and  she  would  go  to  her  mistress  im- 
mediately. The  next  moment  the  house  was 
awakened  by  the  screams  of  the  maid  calling  for 
help,  that  Mrs.  Vandam  was  dying. 

"That  was  three  nights  ago.  On  each  of  the 
two  succeeding  nights  Henry  Vandam  says  he 
has  been  awakened  at  precisely  the  same  hour  by 
a  rapping,  and  on  each  night  his  'control'  has 
given  him  a  message  from  his  dead  wife.  As  a 
man  of  science,  I  attribute  the  whole  thing  to  an 
overwrought  imagination.  The  original  rappings 
may  have  been  a  mere  coincidence  with  the  fact 
of  the  condition  of  Mrs.  Vandam.  However,  I 
give  this  to  you  for  what  it  is  worth. ' ' 


128  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

Craig  said  nothing,  but,  as  was  Ms  habit, 
shaded  his  eyes  with  the  tips  of  his  fingers,  rest- 
ing his  elbows  on  the  arms  of  his  chair.  ' '  I  sup- 
pose,'.* he  said,  "you  can  give  me  the  necessary 
authority  to  enter  the  Vandam  house  and  look  at 
the  scene  of  these  happenings  ?" 

"Certainly,"  assented  the  physician,  "but  you 
will  find  it  a  queer  place.  There  are  spirit  paint- 
ings and  spirit  photographs  in  every  room,  and 
Vandam 's  own  part  of  the  house — well,  it's 
creepy,  that's  all  I  can  say." 

"And  also  I  suppose  you  have  performed  an 
autopsy  on  the  body  and  will  allow  me  to  drop 
into  your  laboratory  to-morrow  morning  and  sat- 
isfy myself  on  this  morphine  point?" 

"Certainly,"  replied  the  coroner's  physician, 
"at  any  time  you  say." 

"At  ten  sharp,  then,  to-morrow  I  shall  be 
there,"  said  Craig.  "It  is  now  eight-thirty.  Do 
you  think  I  can  see  Vandam  to-night?  What 
time  do  these  rappings  occur?" 

"Why,  yes,  you  surely  will  be  able  to  see  him 
to-night.  He  hasn't  stirred  from  the  house  since 
his  wife  died.  He  told  me  he  momentarily  ex- 
pected messages  from  her  direct  when  she  had 
got  strong  enough  in  her  new  world.  I  believe 
they  had  some  kind  of  a  compact  to  that  effect. 
The  rappings  come  at  twelve-thirty." 

"Ah,  then  I  shall  have  plenty  of  time  to  run 
over  to  my  laboratory  before  seeing  Mr.  Vandam 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH  ADVENTURE    129 

and  get  some  apparatus  I  have  in  mind.  No, 
Doctor,  you  needn't  bother  to  go  with  me.  Just 
give  me  a  card  of  introduction.  I'll  see  you  to- 
morrow at  ten.  Good-night — oh,  by  the  way, 
don't  give  out  any  of  the  facts  you  have  told  me." 

"Jameson,"  said  Craig,  when  we  were  walking 
rapidly  over  toward  the  university,  "this  prom- 
ises to  be  an  uncommonly  difficult  case. ' ' 

"As  I  view  it  now,"  I  said,  "I  have  suspicions 
of  everybody  concerned  in  it.  Even  the  view  of 
the  Star,  that  it  is  a  case  of  suicide  due  to  over- 
wrought nerves,  may  explain  it." 

"It  might  even  be  a  natural  death,"  Craig 
added.  "And  that  would  make  it  a  greater  mys- 
tery than  ever — a  case  for  psychical  research. 
One  thing  that  I  am  going  to  do  to-night  will  tell 
me  much,  however." 

At  the  laboratory  he  unlocked  a  glass  case  and 
took  out  a  little  instrument  which  looked  like  two 
horizontal  pendulums  suspended  by  fine  wires. 
There  was  a  large  magnet  near  each  pendulum, 
and  the  end  of  each  pendulum  bore  a  needle  which 
touched  a  circular  drum  driven  by  clock-work. 
Craig  fussed  with  and  adjusted  the  apparatus, 
while  I  said  nothing,  for  I  had  long  ago  learned 
that  in  applying  a  new  apparatus  to  doing  old 
things  Craig  was  as  dumb  as  an  oyster,  until  his 
work  was  crowned  with  success. 

We  had  no  trouble  in  getting  in  to  see  Mr.  Van- 
dam  in  his  seance-room.  His  face  was  familiar 


130  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

to  me,  for  I  had  seen  him  in  public  a  numbev  uf 
times,  but  it  looked  strangely  altered.  He  was 
nervous,  and  showed  his  age  very  perceptibly. 

It  was  as  the  coroner's  physician  had  said. 
The  house  was  littered  with  reminders  of  the  cult, 
books,  papers,  curious  daubs  of  paintings  hand- 
somely framed,  and  photographs;  hazy  over-ex-, 
posures,  I  should  have  called  them,  but  Mr.  Van- 
dam  took  great  pride  in  them,  and  Kennedy  quite? 
won  him  over  by  his  admiration  for  them. 

They  talked  about  the  rappings,  and  the  old 
man  explained  where  and  when  they  occurred. 
They  proceeded  from  a  little  cabinet  or  closet  at 
one  end  of  the  room.  It  was  evident  that  he  was 
a  thorough  believer  in  them  and  in  the  messages 
they  conveyed. 

Craig  carefully  noted  everything  about  the 
room  and  then  fell  to  admiring  the  spirit  photo- 
graphs, if  such  they  might  be  called. 

"The  best  of  all  I  do  not  display,  they  are  too 
precious,"  said  the  old  man.  "Would  you  like 
to  see  them?" 

Craig  assented  eagerly,  and  Vandam  left  us  for 
a  moment  to  get  them.  In  an  instant  Craig  had 
entered  the  cabinet,  and  in  a  dark  corner  on  the 
floor  he  deposited  the  mechanism  he  had  brought 
from  the  laboratory.  Then  he  resumed  his  seat, 
shutting  the  box  in  which  he  had  brought  the 
mechanism,  so  that  it  would  not  appear  that  he 
had  left  anything  about  the  room. 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH   ADVENTURE    131 

Artfully  tie  led  the  conversation  along  lines 
that  interested  the  old  man  until  he  seemed  to 
forget  the  hour.  Not  so,  Craig.  He  knew  it  was 
nearing  half-past  twelve.  The  more  they  talked 
the  more  uncanny  did  this  house  and  room  of 
spirits  seem  to  me.  In  fact,  I  was  rapidly  reach- 
ing the  point  where  I  could  have  sworn  that  once 
or  twice  something  incorporeal  brushed  by  me. 
I  know  now  that  it  was  purely  imagination,  but 
it  shows  what  tricks  the  imagination  can  play 
on  us. 

Rap !  rap !  rap !  rap !  rap ! 

Five  times  came  a  curiously  hollow  noise  from 
the  cabinet.  If  it  had  been  possible  I  should  cer- 
tainly have  fled,  it  was  so  sudden  and  unexpected. 
The  hall  clock  downstairs  struck  the  half-hour  in 
those  chimes  written  by  Handel  for  St.  Paul's. 

Craig  leaned  over  to  me  and  whispered 
hoarsely,  "Keep  perfectly  still— don't  move  a 
hand  or  foot." 

The  old  man  seemed  utterly  to  have  forgotten 
us.  "Is  that  you,  John?"  he  asked  expectantly. 

Rap !  rap !  rap !  came  the  reply. 

"Is  Mary  strong  enough  to  speak  to  me  to- 
night?" 

Rap!  rap! 

"Is  she  happy?" 

Rap!  rap! 

"What  makes  her  unhappy?  What  does  she 
want?  Will  you  spell  it  out?" 


132  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

Rap !  rap !  rap ! 

Then,  after  a  pause,  the  rapping  started  slowly 
and  distinctly  to  spell  out  words.  It  was  so  weird 
and  uncanny  that  I  scarcely  breathed.  Letter 
after  letter  the  message  came,  nineteen  raps  for 
"s,"  eight  for  "h,"  five  for  "e,"  according  to  the 
place  in  the  alphabet,  numerically,  of  the  required 
letter.  At  last  it  was  complete : 

"She  thinks  you  are  not  well.  She  asks  you 
to  have  that  prescription  filled  again." 

"Tell  her  I  will  do  it  to-morrow  morning.  Is 
there  anything  else  ? ' ' 

Kap!  rap!  came  back  faintly. 

"John,  John,  don't  go  yet,"  pleaded  the  old 
man  earnestly.  It  was  easy  to  see  how 
thoroughly  he  believed  in  "John,"  as  perhaps 
well  he  might  after  the  warning  of  his  wife's 
death  three  nights  before.  "Won't  you  answer 
one  other  question!" 

Fainter,  almost  imperceptibly,  came  a  rap! 
rap! 

For  several  minutes  the  old  man  sat  absorbed 
in  thought,  trance-like.  Then,  gradually,  he 
seemed  to  realise  that  we  were  in  the  room  with 
him.  With  difficulty  he  took  up  the  thread  of  the 
conversation  where  the  rappings  had  broken  it. 

"We  were  talking  about  the  photographs,"  he 
said  slowly.  "I  hope  soon  to  get  one  of  my  wife 
as  she  is  now  that  she  is  transfigured.  John  has 
promised  me  one  soon." 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH   ADVENTURE    133 

He  was  gathering  up  his  treasures  preparatory 
to  putting  them  back  in  their  places  of  safe-keep- 
ing. The  moment  he  was  out  of  the  room  Craig 
darted  into  the  cabinet  and  replaced  his  mechan- 
ism in  the  box.  Then  he  began  softly  to  tap  the 
walls.  At  last  he  found  the  side  that  gave  a  noise 
similar  to  that  which  we  had  heard,  and  he  seemed 
pleased  to  have  found  it,  for  he  hastily  sketched 
on  an  old  envelope  a  plan  of  that  part  of  the 
house,  noting  on  it  the  location  of  the  side  of  the 
cabinet. 

Kennedy  almost  dragged  me  back  to  our  apart- 
ment, he  was  in  such  a  hurry  to  examine  the  ap- 
paratus at  his  leisure.  He  turned  on  all  the 
lights,  took  the  thing  out  of  its  case,  and  stripped 
off  the  two  sheets  of  ruled  paper  wound  around 
the  two  revolving  drums.  He  laid  them  flat  on 
the  table  and  studied  them  for  some  minutes  with 
evidently  growing  satisfaction. 

At  last  he  turned  to  me  and  said,  "  Walter,  here 
is  a  ghost  caught  in  the  act." 

I  looked  dubiously  at  the  irregular  up-and-down 
scrawl  on  the  paper,  while  he  rang  up  the  Homi- 
cide Bureau  of  the  Central  Office  and  left  word 
for  0  'Connor  to  call  him  up  the  first  thing  in  the 
morning. 

Still  eyeing  with  satisfaction  the  record  traced 
on  the  sheets  of  paper,  he  lighted  a  cigarette  in 
a  matter-of-fact  way  and  added:  "It  proves  to  be 
a  very  much  flesh-and-blood  ghost,  this  'John.' 


134  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

It  walked  up  to  the  wall  back  of  that  cabinet, 
rapped,  listened  to  old  Vandam,  rapped  some 
more,  got  the  answer  it  wanted,  and  walked  de- 
liberately away.  The  cabinet,  as  you  may  have 
noticed,  is  in  a  corner  of  the  room  with  one  side 
along  the  hallway.  The  ghost  must  have  been  in 
the  hall." 

"But  who  was  it?" 

"Not  so  fast,  Walter,"  laughed  Craig.  "Isn't 
it  enough  for  one  night  that  we  have  found  out 
that  much?" 

Fortunately  I  was  tired,  or  I  certainly  should 
have  dreamed  of  rappings  and  of  "John"  that 
night.  I  was  awakened  early  by  Kennedy  talk- 
ing with  someone  over  the  telephone.  It  was  In- 
spector O'Connor. 

Of  course  I  heard  only  one  side  of  the  conver- 
sation, but  as  near  as  I  could  gather  Kennedy 
was  asking  the  inspector  to  obtain  several  sam- 
ples of  ink  for  him.  I  had  not  heard  the  first 
part  of  the  conversation,  and  was  considerably 
surprised  when  Kennedy  hung  up  the  receiver 
and  said: 

"Vandam  had  the  prescription  filled  again 
early  this  morning,  and  it  will  soon  be  in  the 
hands  of  O'Connor.  I  hope  I  haven't  spoiled 
things  by  acting  too  soon,  but  I  don't  want  to  run 
the  risk  of  a  double  tragedy." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "it  is  incomprehensible  to  me. 
First  I  suspected  suicide.  Then  I  suspected  mur- 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH   ADVENTURE    135 

der.  Now  I  almost  suspect  a  murder  and  a  sui- 
cide. The  fact  is,  I  don't  know  just  what  I  sus- 
pect. I'm  like  Dr.  Hanson — floored.  I  wonder 
if  Vandam  would  voluntarily  take  all  the  capsules 
at  once  in  order  to  be  with  his  wife  ? ' ' 

''One  of  them  alone  would  be  quite  sufficient  if 
the  'ghost'  should  take  a  notion,  as  I  think  it  will, 
to  walk  in  the  daytime,"  replied  Craig  enigmati- 
cally. "I  don't  want  to  run  any  chances,  as  I 
have  said.  I  may  be  wrong  in  my  theory  of  the 
case,  Walter,  so  let  us  not  discuss  this  phase  of 
it  until  I  have  gone  a  step  farther  and  am  sure  of 
my  ground.  O'Connor's  man  will  get  the  cap- 
sules before  Vandam  has  a  chance  to  take  the 
first  one,  anyhow.  The  'ghost'  had  a  purpose  in 
that  message,  for  O'Connor  tells  me  that  Van- 
dam's  lawyer  visited  him  yesterday  and  in  all 
probability  a  new  will  is  being  made,  perhaps  has 
already  been  made." 

We  breakfasted  in  silence  and  later  rode  down 
to  the  office  of  Dr.  Hanson,  who  greeted  us  en- 
thusiastically. 

"I've  solved  it  at  last,"  he  cried,  "and  it's 
easy." 

Kennedy  looked  gravely  over  the  analysis  which 
Dr.  Hanson  shoved  into  his  hand,  and  seemed 
very  much  interested  in  the  probable  quantity  of 
morphine  that  must  have  been  taken  to  yield  such' 
an  analysis.  The  physician  had  a  text-book  open 
on  his  desk. 


136  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

"Our  old  ideas  of  the  infallible  test  of  mor- 
phine poisoning  are  all  exploded,"  he  said,  ex- 
citedly beginning  to  read  a  passage  he  had  marked 
in  the  book. 

"  'I  have  thought  that  inequality  of  the  pupils,  that 
is  to  say,  where  they  are  not  symmetrically  contracted, 
is  proof  that  a  case  is  not  one  of  narcotism,  or  mor- 
phine poisoning.  But  Professor  Taylor  has  recorded  a 
case  of  morphine  poisoning  in  which  the  unsymmetrical 
contraction  occurred.' 

"There,  now,  until  I  happened  to  run  across 
that  in  one  of  the  authorities  I  had  supposed  the 
symmetrical  contraction  of  the  pupils  of  the  eyes 
to  be  the  distinguishing  symptom  of  morphine 
poisoning*  Professor  Kennedy,  in  my  opinion 
we  can,  after  all,  make  out  our  case  as  one  of  mor- 
phine poisoning." 

"Is  that  case  in  the  book  all  you  base  your 
opinion  on?"  asked  Craig  with  excessive  polite- 
ness. 

"Yes,  sir,"  replied  the  doctor  reluctantly. 

"Well,"  said  Kennedy  quietly,  "if  you  will  in- 
vestigate that  case  quoted  from  Professor  Tay- 
lor, you  will  find  that  it  has  been  proved  that  the 
patient  had  one  glass  eye!" 

"Then  my  contention  collapses  and  she  was  not 
poisoned?" 

"No,  I  do  not  say  that.  All  I-say  is  that  ex- 
pert testimony  would  refute  us  as  far  as  we  have 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH  ADVENTURE    137 

gone.  But  if  you  will  let  me  make  a  few  tests  of 
my  own  I  can  readily  clear  up  that  end  of  the  case, 
I  now  feel  sure.  Let  me  take  these  samples  to  my 
laboratory. ' ' 

I  was  surprised  when  we  ran  into  Inspector 
O'Connor  waiting  for  us  in  the  corridor  of  the 
Criminal  Courts  Building  as  we  left  the  office  of 
the  coroner's  physician.  He  rushed  up  to  Ken- 
nedy and  shoved  into  his  hand  a  pill-box  in  which 
six  capsules  rattled.  Kennedy  narrowly  in- 
spected the  box,  opened  it,  and  looked  thought- 
fully at  the  six  white  capsules  lying  so  innocently 
within. 

"One  of  these  capsules  would  have  been  worth 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  to  'John,'  " 
said  Craig  contemplatively,  as  he  shut  the  box 
and  deposited  it  carefully  in  his  inside  vest  pocket. 
"I  don't  believe  I  even  said  good  morning  to  you, 
O 'Connor, "  he  continued.  "I  hope  I  haven't 
kept  you  waiting  here  long.  Have  you  obtained 
the  samples  of  ink?" 

"Yes,  Professor.  Here  they  are.  As  soon  as 
you  telephoned  this  morning  I  sent  my  men  out 
separately  to  get  them.  There's  the  ink  from  the 
druggist,  this  is  from  the  Vandam  library,  this  is 
from  Farrington's  room,  and  this  is  from  Mrs. 
Popper's  apartment." 

1 '  Thank  you,  Inspector.  I  don 't  know  what  I  'd 
do  without  your  help,"  said  Kennedy,  eagerly 
taking  four  small  vials  from  him.  "Science  is 


138  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

all  right,  but  organisation  enables  science  to  wort 
quickly.  And  quickness  is  the  essence  of  this 
case." 

During  the  afternoon  Kennedy  was  very  busy 
in  his  laboratory,  where  I  found  him  that  night 
after  my  hurried  dinner,  from  which  he  was  ab- 
sent. 

"What,  is  it  after  dinner-time?"  he  exclaimed, 
holding  up  a  glass  beaker  and  watching  the  re- 
action of  something  he  poured  into  it  from  a  test- 
tube. 

1  'Craig,  I  believe  that  when  you  are  absorbed 
in  a  case,  yo-u  would  rather  work  than  eat.  Did 
you  have  any  lunch  after  I  left  you?" 

"I  don't  think  so,"  he  replied,  regarding  the 
beaker  and  not  his  answer.  "Now,  Walter,  old 
fellow,  I  don't  want  you  to  be  offended  with  me, 
but  really  I  can  work  better  if  you  don't  con- 
stantly remind  me  of  such  things  as  eating  and 
sleeping.  Say,  do  you  want  to  help  me — really  ? ' ' 

"Certainly.  I  am  as  interested  in  the  case  as 
you  are,  but  I  can't  make  heads  or  tails  of  it,"  I 
replied. 

"Then,  I  wish  you  would  look  up  Mrs.  Popper 
to-night  and  have  a  private  seance  with  her. 
What  I  want  you  to  do  particularly  is  to  get  a 
good  idea  of  the  looks  of  the  room  in  which  she 
is  accustomed  to  work.  I'm  going  to  duplicate  it 
here  in  my  laboratory  as  nearly  as  possible. 
Then  I  want  you  to  arrange  with  her  for  a  pri- 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH   ADVENTURE    139 

vate  'circle'  here  to-morrow  night.  Tell  her  it  ig 
with  a  few  professors  at  the  university  who  are 
interested  in  psychical  research  and  that  Mr.  Van- 
dam  will  be  present.  I'd  rather  have  her  come 
willingly  than  to  force  her  to  come.  Incidentally 
watch  that  manager  of  hers,  Farrington.  By  all 
means  he  must  accompany  her." 

That  evening  I  dropped  casually  in  on  Mrs. 
Popper.  She  was  a  woman  of  great  brilliance  and 
delicacy,  both  in  her  physical  and  mental  percep- 
tions, of  exceptional  vivacity  and  cleverness. 
She  must  have  studied  me  more  closely  than  I 
was  aware  of,  for  I  believe  she  relied  on  diverting 
my  attention  whenever  she  desired  to  produce  one 
of  her  really  wonderful  results.  Needless  to  say, 
I  was  completely  mystified  by  her  performance. 
She  did  spirit  writing  that  would  have  done  credit 
to  the  immortal  Slade,  told  me  a  lot  of  things  that 
were  true,  and  many  more  that  were  unverifiable 
or  hopelessly  vague.  It  was  really  worth  much 
more  than  the  price,  and  I  did  not  need  to  feign 
the  interest  necessary  to  get  her  terms  for  a  circle 
in  the  laboratory. 

Of  course  I  had  to  make  the  terms  with  Farring- 
ton. The  first  glance  aroused  my  suspicions  of 
him.  He  was  shifty-eyed,  and  his  face  had  a  hard 
and  mercenary  look.  In  spite  of,  perhaps  rather 
because  of,  my  repugnance  we  quickly  came  to  an 
agreement,  and  as  I  left  the  apartment  I  mentally 
resolved  to  keep  my  eye  on  him. 


140  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

Craig  came  in  late,  having  been  engaged  in  his 
chemical  analyses  all  the  evening.  From  his 
manner  I  inferred  that  they  had  been  satisfac- 
tory, and  he  seemed  much  gratified  when  I  told 
him  that  I  had  arranged  successfully  for  the 
seance  and  that  Farrington  would  accompany  the 
medium. 

As  we  were  talking  over  the  case  a  messenger 
arrived  with  a  note  from  0  'Connor.  It  was  writ- 
ten with  his  usual  brevity :  "Have  just  found  from 
servants  that  Farrington  and  Mrs.  P.  have  key  to 
Vandam  house.  Wish  I  had  known  it  before. 
House  shadowed.  No  one  has  entered  or  left  it 
to-night." 

Craig  looked  at  his  watch.  It  was  a  quarter 
after  one.  "The  ghost  won't  walk  to-night,  Wal- 
ter," he  said  as  he  entered  his  bedroom  for  a 
much-needed  rest.  "I  guess  I  was  right  after  all 
in  getting  the  capsules  as  soon  as  possible.  The 
ghost  must  have  flitted  unobserved  in  there  this 
morning  directly  after  the  maid  brought  them 
back  from  the  druggist. " 

Again,  the  next  morning,  he  had  me  out  of  bed 
bright  and  early.  As  we  descended  from  the 
Sixth  Avenue  "L,"  he  led  me  into  a  peculiar  little 
shop  in  the  shadow  of  the  "L"  structure.  He 
entered  as  though  he  knew  the  place  well;  but, 
then,  that  air  of  assurance  was  Kennedy's  stock 
in  trade  and  sat  very  well  on  him. 

Few  people,  I  suppose,  have  ever  had  a  glimpse 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH   ADVENTURE    141 

of  this  workshop  of  magic  and  deception.  This 
little  shop  of  Marina's  was  the  headquarters  of 
the  magicians  of  the  country.  Levitation  and 
ghostly  disappearing  hands  were  on  every  side. 
The  shelves  in  the  back  of  the  shop  were  full  of 
nickel,  brass,  wire,  wood,  and  papier-mache  con- 
trivances, new  and  strange  to  the  eye  of  the  un- 
initiated. Yet  it  was  all  as  systematic  as  a  hard- 
ware shop. 

"Is  Signer  Marina  in?"  asked  Craig  of  a  girl 
in  the  first  room,  given  up  to  picture  post-cards. 
The  room  was  as  deceptive  as  the  trade,  for  it 
was  only  an  anteroom  to  the  storeroom  I  have  de- 
scribed above.  This  storeroom  was  also  a  fac- 
tory, and  half  a  dozen  artisans  were  hard  at  work 
in  it. 

Yes,  the  signer  was  in,  the  girl  replied,  leading 
us  back  into  the  workshop.  He  proved  to  be  a 
short  man  with  a  bland,  open  face  and  frank  eyes, 
the  very  antithesis  of  his  trade. 

"I  have  arranged  for  a  circle  with  Mrs.  May 
Popper,"  began  Kennedy,  handing  the  man  his 
card.  ' '  I  suppose  you  know  her  ?  " 

"Indeed  yes,"  he  answered.  "I  furnished  her 
seance-room." 

"Well,  I  want  to  hire  for  to-night  just  the  same 
sort  of  tables,  cabinets,  carpets,  everything  that 
she  has — only  hire,  you  understand,  but  I  am  will- 
ing to  pay  you  well  for  them.  It  is  the  best  way 
to  get  a  good  sitting,  I  believe.  Can  you  do  it?" 


142  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

The  little  man  thought  a  moment,  then  replied : 
"Si,  signer — yes — very  nearly,  near  enough.  I 
would  do  anything  for  Mrs.  Popper.  She  is  a 
good  customer.  But  her  manager — ' ' 

"My  friend  here,  Mr.  Jameson,  has  had  seances 
with  her  in  her  own  apartment, "  interposed 
Craig.  "Perhaps  he  can  help  you  to  recollect 
just  what  is  necessary. " 

"I  know  very  well,  signor.  I  have  the  dupli- 
cate bill,  the  bill  which  was  paid  by  that  Farring- 
ton  with  a  check  from  the  banker  Vandam. 
Leave  it  to  me." 

"Then  you  will  get  the  stuff  together  this  morn- 
ing and  have  it  up  to  my  place  this  afternoon?" 

"Yes,  Professor,  yes.  It  is  a  bargain.  I 
would  do  anything  for  Mrs.  Popper — she  is  a  fine 
woman." 

Late  that  afternoon  I  rejoined  Craig  at  his  lab- 
oratory. Signor  Marina  had  already  arrived 
with  a  truck  and  was  disposing  the  paraphernalia 
about  the  laboratory.  He  had  first  laid  a  thick 
black  rug.  Mrs.  Popper  very  much  affected  black 
carpets,  and  I  had  noticed  that  Vandam 's  room 
was  carpeted  in  black,  too.  I  suppose  black  con- 
ceals everything  that  one  oughtn't  to  see  at  a 
seance. 

A  cabinet  with  a  black  curtain,  several  chairs, 
a  light  deal  table,  several  banjos,  horns,  and  other 
instruments  were  disposed  about  the  room.  With 
a  few  suggestions  from  me  we  made  a  fair  dupli- 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH   ADVENTURE    143 

cation  of  the  hangings  on  the  walls.  Kennedy 
was  manifestly  anxious  to  finish,  and  at  last  it 
was  done. 

After  Marina  had  gone,  Kennedy  stretched  a 
curtain  over  the  end  of  the  room  farthest  from 
the  cabinet.  Behind  it  he  placed  on  a  shelf  the 
apparatus  composed  of  the  pendulums  and  mag- 
nets. The  beakers  and  test-tubes  were  also  on 
this  shelf. 

He  had  also  arranged  that  the  cabinet  should 
be  so  situated  that  it  was  next  a  hallway  that  ran 
past  his  laboratory. 

"To-night,  Jameson,"  he  said,  indicating  a  spot 
on  the  hall  wall  just  back  of  the  cabinet,  "I  shall 
want  you  to  bring  my  guests  out  here  and  do  a 
little  spirit  rapping — I'll  tell  you  just  what  to  do 
when  the  time  comes. " 

That  night,  when  we  gathered  in  the  trans- 
formed laboratory,  there  were  Henry  Vandam, 
Dr.  Hanson,  Inspector  O'Connor,  Kennedy,  and 
myself.  At  last  the  sound  of  wheels  was  heard, 
and  Mrs.  Popper  drove  up  in  a  hansom,  accom- 
panied by  Farrington.  They  both  inspected  the 
room  narrowly  and  seemed  satisfied.  I  had,  as  I 
have  said,  taken  a  serious  dislike  to  the  man,  and 
watched  him  closely.  I  did  not  like  his  air  of 
calm  assurance. 

The  lights  were  switched  off,  all  except  one  six- 
teen-candle-power  lamp  in  the  farthest  corner, 
shaded  by  a  deep-red  globe.  It  was  just  light 


144  ,THE   SILENT   BULLET 

enough  to  see  to  read  very  large  print  with  diffi- 
culty. 

Mrs.  Popper  began  immediately  with  the  table. 
Kennedy  and  I  sat  on  her  right  and  left  respect- 
ively, in  the  circle,  and  held  her  hands  and  feet. 
I  confess  to  a  real  thrill  when  I  felt  the  light  table 
rise  first  on  two  legs,  then  on  one,  and  finally  re- 
main suspended  in  the  air,  whence  it  dropped 
with  a  thud,  as  if  someone  had  suddenly  with- 
drawn his  support. 

The  medium  sat  with  her  back  to  the  curtain 
of  the  cabinet,  and  several  times  I  could  have 
sworn  that  a  hand  reached  out  and  passed  close 
to  my  head.  At  least  it  seemed  so.  The  curtain 
bulged  at  times,  and  a  breeze  seemed  to  sweep 
out  from  the  cabinet. 

After  some  time  of  this  sort  of  work  Craig  led 
gradually  up  to  a  request  for  a  materialisation  of 
the  control  of  Vandam,  but  Mrs.  Popper  refused. 
She  said  she  did  not  feel  strong  enough,  and  Far- 
rington  put  in  a  hasty  word  that  he,  too,  could 
feel  that  "there  was  something  working  against 
them."  But  Kennedy  was  importunate  and  at 
last  she  consented  to  see  if  "John"  would  do 
some  rapping,  even  if  he  could  not  materialise. 

Kennedy  asked  to  be  permitted  to  put  the  ques- 
tions. 

"Are  you  the  'John'  who  appears  to  Mr.  Van- 
dam  every  night  at  twelve-thirty!" 

Eap!  rap!  rap!  came  the  faint  reply  from  the 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH  ADVENTURE    145 

cabinet.  Or  rather  it  seemed  to  me  to  come  from 
the  floor  near  the  cabinet,  and  perhaps  to  be  a 
trifle  muffled  by  the  black  carpet. 

"Are  you  in  communication  with  Mrs.  Van- 
rdam?" 

Rap !  rap !  rap ! 

"Can  she  be  made  to  rap  for  us!" 

Rap!  rap! 

"Will  you  ask  her  a  question  and  spell  out  her 
answer  !" 

Rap !  rap !  rap ! 

Craig  paused  a  moment  to  frame  the  question, 
then  shot  it  out  point-blank:  "Does  Mrs.  Vandam 
know  now  in  the  other  world  whether  anyone  in 
this  room  substituted  a  morphine  capsule  for  one 
of  those  ordered  by  her  three  days  before  she 
died?  Does  she  know  whether  the  same  person 
has  done  the  same  thing  with  those  later  ordered 
by  Mr.  Vandam  I" 

"John'*  seemed  considerably  perturbed  at  the 
mention  of  capsules.  It  was  a  long  time  before 
any  answer  was  forthcoming.  Kennedy  was 
about  to  repeat  the  question  when  a  faint  sound 
was  heard. 

Rap!— 

Suddenly  came  a  wild  scream.  It  was  such  a 
scream  as  I  had  never  heard  before  in  my  life. 
It  came  as  though  a  dagger  had  been  thrust  into 
the  heart  of  Mrs.  Popper.  The  lights  flashed  up 
as  Kennedy  turned  the  switch. 


146  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

A  man  was  lying  flat  on  the  floor — it  was  In- 
spector 0  'Connor.  He  had  succeeded  in  slipping 
noiselessly,  like  a  snake,  below  the  curtain  into 
the  cabinet.  Craig  had  told  him  to  look  out  for 
wires  or  threads  stretched  from  Mrs.  Popper's 
clothing  to  the  bulging  curtain  of  the  cabinet. 
Imagine  his  surprise  when  he  saw  that  she  had 
simply  freed  her  foot  from  the  shoe,  which  I  was 
carefully  holding  down,  and  with  a  backward 
movement  of  the  leg  was  reaching  out  into  the 
cabinet  behind  her  chair  and  was  doing  the  rap- 
ping with  her  toes. 

Lying  on  the  floor  he  had  grasped  her  foot  and 
caught  her  heel  with  a  firm  hand.  She  had  re- 
sponded with  a  wild  yell  that  showed  she  knew 
she  was  trapped.  Her  secret  was  out. 

Hysterically  Mrs.  Popper  began  to  upbraid  the 
inspector  as  he  rose  to  his  feet,  but  Farrington 
quickly  interposed. 

"Something  was  working  against  us  to-night, 
gentlemen.  Yet  you  demanded  results.  And 
when  the  spirits  will  not  come,  what  is  she  to  do? 
She  forgets  herself  in  her  trance;  she  produces, 
herself,  the  things  that  you  all  could  see  super- 
naturally  if  you  were  in  sympathy. ' ' 

The  mere  sound  of  Farrington 's  voice  seemed 
to  rouse  in  me  all  the  animosity  of  my  nature. 
I  felt  that  a  man  who  could  trump  up  an  excuse 
like  that  when  a  person  was  caught  with  the  goods 
was  capable  of  almost  anything.  « 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH  ADVENTURE    147 

"Enough  of  this  fake  seance,"  exclaimed  Craig. 
"I  have  let  it  go  on  merely  for  the  purpose  of 
opening  the  eyes  of  a  certain  deluded  gentleman 
in  this  room.  Now,  if  you  will  all  be  seated  I  shall 
have  something  to  say  that  will  finally  establish 
whether  Mary  Vandam  was  the  victim  of  acci- 
dent, suicide,  or  murder." 

With  hearts  beating  rapidly  we  sat  in  silence. 

Craig  took  the  beakers  and  test-tubes  from  the 
shelf  behind  the  curtain  and  placed  them  on  the 
little  deal  table  that  had  been  so  merrily  dancing 
about  the  room. 

"The  increasing  frequency  with  which  tales  of 
murder  by  poison  appear  in  the  newspapers,'*  he 
began  formally,  "is  proof  of  how  rapidly  this 
new  civilisation  of  ours  is  taking  on  the  aspects 
of  the  older  civilisations  across  the  seas.  Hu- 
man life  is  cheap  in  this  country;  but  the 
ways  in  which  human  life  has  been  taken 
among  us  have  usually  been  direct,  simple,  above- 
board,  in  keeping  with  our  democratic  and  pio- 
neer traditions.  The  pistol  and  the  bowie-knife 
for  the  individual,  the  rope  and  the  torch  for  the 
mob,  have  been  the  usual  instruments  of  sudden 
death.  But  when  we  begin  to  use  poisons  most 
artfully  compounded  in  order  to  hasten  an  ex- 
pected bequest  and  remove  obstacles  in  its  way — 
well,  we  are  practising  an  art  that  calls  up  all  the 
memories  of  sixteenth  century  Italy. 

"In  this  beaker,"  he  continued,  "I  have  some 


148  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

of  the  contents  of  the  stomach  of  the  unfortunate 
woman.  The  coroner's  physician  has  found  that 
they  show  traces  of  morphine.  Was  the  mor- 
phine in  such  quantities  as  to  be  fatal?  Without 
doubt.  But  equally  without  doubt  analysis  could 
not  discover  and  prove  it  in  the  face  of  one  in- 
consistency. The  usual  test  which  shows  mor- 
phine poisoning  failed  in  this  case.  The  pupils 
of  her  eyes  were  not  symmetrically  contracted. 
In  fact  they  were  normal. 

"Now,  the  murderer  must  have  known  of  this 
test.  This  clever  criminal  also  knew  that  to  be 
successful  in  the  use  of  this  drug  where  others 
had  failed,  the  drug  must  be  skilfully  mixed  with 
something  else.  In  that  first  box  of  capsules 
there  were  six.  The  druggist  compounded  them 
correctly  according  to  the  prescription.  But  be- 
tween the  time  when  they  came  into  the  house 
from  the  druggist's  and  the  time  when  she  took 
the  first  capsule,  that  night,  someone  who  had  ac- 
cess to  the  house  emptied  one  capsule  of  its  harm- 
less contents  and  refilled  it  with  a  deadly  dose  of 
morphine — a  white  powder  which  looks  just  like 
the  powder  already  in  the  capsules. 

"Why,  then,  the  normal  pupils  of  the  eyes? 
Simply  because  the  criminal  put  a  little  atropine, 
or  belladonna,  with  the  morphine.  My  tests  show 
absolutely  the  presence  of  atropine,  Dr.  Hanson," 
said  Craig,  bowing  to  the  physician. 

"The  best  evidence,  however,  is  yet  to  come.    A 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH   ADVENTURE    149 

second  box  of  six  capsules,  all  intact,  was  discov- 
ered yesterday  in  the  possession  of  Henry  Van- 
dam.  I  have  analysed  the  capsules.  One  contains 
no  quinine  at  all — it  is  all  morphine  and  atropine. 
It  is,  without  doubt,  precisely  similar  to  the  cap- 
sule which  killed  Mrs.  Vandam.  Another  night 
or  so,  and  Henry  Vandam  would  have  died  the 
same  death." 

The  old  man  groaned.  Two  such  exposures 
had  shaken  him.  He  looked  from  one  of  us  to 
another  as  if  not  knowing  in  whom  he  could  trust. 
But  Kennedy  hurried  on  to  his  next  point. 

"Who  was  it  that  gave  the  prescription  to  Mrs. 
Vandam  originally  ?  She  is  dead  and  cannot  tell. 
The  others  won't  tell,  for  the  person  who  gave 
her  that  prescription  was  the  person  who  later 
substituted  the  fatal  capsule  in  place  of  the  harm- 
less. The  original  prescription  is  here.  I  have 
been  able  to  discover  from  it  nothing  at  all  by  ex- 
amining the  handwriting.  Nor  does  the  texture 
of  the  paper  indicate  anything  to  me.  But  the  ink 
— ah,  the  ink. 

"Most  inks  seem  very  similar,  I  suppose,  but 
to  a  person  who  has  made  a  study  of  the  chemical 
composition  of  ink  they  are  very  different.  Ink 
is  composed  of  iron  tannate,  which  on  exposure 
to  air  gives  the  black  of  writing.  The  original 
pigment — say  blue  or  blue-black  ink — is  placed 
in  the  ink,  to  make  the  writing  visible  at  first, 
and  gradually  fades,  giving  place  to  the  black  of 


150  -THE   SILENT  BULLET 

the  tannate  which  is  formed.  The  dyestuffs  em- 
ployed in  the  commercial  inks  of  to-day  vary  in 
colour  from  pale  greenish  blue  to  indigo  and  deep 
violet.  No  two  give  identical  reactions — at  all 
events  not  when  mixed  with  the  iron  tannate  to 
form  the  pigment  in  writing. 

"It  is  owing  to  the  difference  in  these  provi- 
sional colouring  matters  that  it  is  possible  to- 
distinguish  between  writing  written  with  different 
kinds  of  ink.  I  was  able  easily  to  obtain  samples 
of  the  inks  used  by  the  Vandams,  by  Mrs.  Pop- 
per, by  Mr.  Farrington,  and  by  the  druggist.  I 
have  compared  the  writing  of  the  original  pre- 
scription with  a  colour  scale  of  my  own  construc- 
tion, and  I  have  made  chemical  tests.  The  drug- 
gist's ink  conforms  exactly  to  the  writing  on  the 
two  pill-boxes,  but  not  to  the  prescription.  One 
of  the  other  three  inks  conforms  by  test  abso- 
lutely to  the  ink  in  that  prescription  signed  'Dr. 
C.  W.  H.'  as  a  blind.  In  a  moment  my  chain  of 
evidence  against  the  owner  of  that  bottle  of  ink 
will  be  complete." 

I  could  not  help  but  think  of  the  two  pendulums 
on  the  shelf  behind  the  curtain,  but  Craig  said 
nothing  for  a  moment  to  indicate  that  he  referred 
to  that  apparatus.  We  sat  dazed.  Farrington 
seemed  nervous  and  ill  at  ease.  Mrs.  Popper, 
who  had  not  recovered  from  the  hysterical  con- 
dition of  her  exposure,  with  difficulty  controlled 
her  emotion.  Vandam  was  crushed. 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH   ADVENTURE    151 

"I  have  not  only  arranged  this  laboratory  so 
as  to  reproduce  Mrs.  Popper's  seance-room,"  be- 
gan Craig  afresh,  "but  I  have  had  the  cabinet 
placed  in  relatively  the  same  position  a  similar 
cabinet  occupies  in  Mr.  Vandam's  private  seance- 
room  in  the  Vandam  mansion. 

"One  night,  Mr.  Jameson  and  myself  were  vis- 
iting Mr.  Vandam.  At  precisely  twelve-thirty  we 
heard  most  unaccountable  rappings  from  that 
cabinet.  I  particularly  noted  the  position  of  the 
cabinet.  Back  of  it  ran  a  hallway.  That  is  dupli- 
cated here.  Back  of  this  cabinet  is  a  hallway. 
I  had  heard  of  these  rappings  before  we  went,  but 
was  afraid  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  me  to 
catch  the  ghost  red  handed.  There  is  a  limit  to 
what  you  can  do  the  first  time  you  enter  a  man's 
house,  and,  besides,  that  was  no  time  to  arouse 
suspicion  in  the  mind  of  anyone.  But  science 
has  a  way  out  of  every  dilemma.  I  determined 
to  learn  something  of  these  rappings." 

Craig  paused  and  glanced  first  at  Farrington, 
then  at  Mrs.  Popper,  and  then  at  Mr.  Vandam. 

"Mr.  Jameson,"  he  resumed,  "will  escort  the 
doctor,  the  inspector,  Mr.  Farrington,  Mrs.  Pop- 
per, and  Mr.  Vandam  into  my  imitation  hall  of 
the  Vandam  mansion.  I  want  each  of  you  in  turn 
to  tiptoe  up  that  hall  to  a  spot  indicated  on  the 
wall,  back  of  the  cabinet,  and  strike  that  spot  sev- 
eral sharp  blows  with  your  knuckles. ' ' 

I  did  as  Craig  instructed  tiptoeing  up  myself 


152  ,THE   SILENT  BULLET 

first  so  that  they  could  not  mistake  his  meaning. 
The  rest  followed  separately,  and  after  a  moment 
we  returned  silently  in  suppressed  excitement  to 
the  room. 

Craig  was  still  standing  by  the  table,  but  now; 
the  pendulums  with  the  magnets  and  needles  and 
the  drums  worked  by  clockwork  were  before  him. 

"Another  person  outside  the  Vandam  family 
had  a  key  to  the  Vandam  mansion,"  he  began 
gravely.  "That  person,  by  the  way,  was  the  one 
who  waited,  night  by  night,  until  Mrs.  Vandam 
took  the  fatal  capsule,  and  then  when  she  had 
taken  it  apprised  the  old  man  of  the  fact  and 
strengthened  an  already  blind  faith  in  the  shadow 
world." 

You  could  have  heard  a  pin  drop.  In  fact  you 
<jould  almost  have  felt  it  drop. 

"That  other  person  who,  unobserved,  had  free 
access  to  the  house,"  he  continued  in  the  breath- 
less stillness,  "is  in  this  room  now." 

He  was  looking  at  O'Connor  as  if  for  corrobo- 
ration.  O'Connor  nodded.  "Information  de- 
rived from  the  butler,"  he  muttered. 

"I  did  not  know  this  until  yesterday,"  Kennedy) 
continued,  "but  I  suspected  that  something  of  the 
sort  existed  when  I  was  first  told  by  Dr.  Hanson 
of  the  rappings.  I  determined  to  hear  those  rap- 
pings,  and  make  a  record  of  them.  So,  the  night 
Mr.  Jameson  and  I  visited  Mr.  Vandam,  I  carried 
this  little  instrument  with  me." 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH  ADVENTURE    153 

Almost  lovingly  he  touched  the  pendulums  on 
the  table.  They  were  now  at  rest  and  kept  so  by- 
means  of  a  lever  that  prevented  all  vibration 
whatever. 

"See,  I  release  this  lever — now,  let  no  one  in 
the  room  move.  Watch  the  needles  on  the  paper 
as  the  clockwork  revolves  the  drums.  I  take  a 
step— ever  so  lightly.  The  pendulums  vibrate, 
and  the  needles  trace  a  broken  line  on  the  paper 
on  each  drum.  I  stop;  the  lines  are  practically 
straight.  I  take  another  step  and 'another,  ever 
so  lightly.  See  the  delicate  pendulums  vibrate? 
See,  the  lines  they  trace  are  jagged  lines. " 

He  stripped  the  paper  off  the  drums  and  laid 
it  flat  on  the  table  before  him,  with  two  other  sim- 
ilar pieces  of  paper. 

"Just  before  the  time  of  the  rapping  I  placed 
this  instrument  in  the  corner  of  the  Vandam  cab- 
inet, just  as  I  placed  it  in  this  cabinet  after  Mr. 
Jameson  conducted  you  from  the  room.  In 
neither  case  were  suspicions  aroused.  Every- 
thing in  both  cases  was  perfectly  normal — I  mean 
the  l ghost'  was  in  ignorance  of  the  presence,  if 
not  the  very  existence,  of  this  instrument. 

"This  is  an  improved  seismograph,"  he  ex- 
plained, "one  after  a  very  recent  model  by  Prince 
Galitzin  of  the  Imperial  Academy  of  St.  Peters- 
burg. The  seismograph,  as  you  know,  was  de- 
vised to  register  earthquakes  at  a  distance. 
This  one  not  only  measures  the  size  of  a  distant 


154  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

earthquake,  but  the  actual  direction  from  which 
the  earth-tremors  come.  That  is  why  there  are 
two  pendulums  and  two  drums. 

"The  magnetic  arrangement  is  to  cut  short 
the  vibrations  set  up  in  the  pendulums,  to  prevent 
them  from  continuing  to  vibrate  after  the  first 
shock.  Thus  they  are  ready  in  an  instant  to  re- 
cord another  tremor.  Other  seismographs  con- 
tinue to  vibrate  for  a  long  time  as  a  result  of  one 
tremor  only.  Besides,  they  give  little  indication 
of  the  direction  from  which  the  tremors  come. 

"I  think  you  must  all  appreciate  that  your 
tiptoeing  up  the  hall  must  cause  a  far  greater 
disturbance  in  this  delicate  seismograph  than 
even  a  very  severe  earthquake  thousands  of  miles 
away,  which  it  was  built  to  record." 

He  paused  and  examined  the  papers  sharply. 

"This  is  the  record  made  by  the  *  ghost  V  walk 
the  other  night, "  he  said,  holding  up  two  of  them 
in  his  left  hand.  "Here  on  the  table,  on  two 
other  longer  sheets,  I  have  records  of  the  vibra- 
tions set  up  by  those  in  this  room  walking  to- 
night. 

"Here  is  Mr.  Jameson's — his  is  not  a  bit  like 
the  ghost's.  Nor  is  Mr.  Vandam's.  Least  of 
all  are  Dr.  Hanson's  and  Inspector  O'Connor's, 
for  they  are  heavy  men. 

"Now  here  is  Mr.  Farrington's" — he  bent 
down  closely — "he  is  a  light  man,  and  the  ghost 
was  light." 


THE   SEISMOGRAPH   ADVENTURE    155 

Craig  was  playing  with  his  victim  like  a  cat 
with  a  mouse. 

Suddenly  I  felt  something  hrush  by  me,  and 
with  a  swish  of  air  and  of  garments  I  saw  Mrs. 
Popper  fling  herself  wildly  at  the  table  that  bore 
the  incriminating  records.  In  another  instant 
Farrington  was  on  his  feet  and  had  made  a  wild 
leap  in  the  same  direction. 

It  was  done  so  quickly  that  I  must  have  acted 
first  and  thought  afterward.  I  found  myself  in 
the  midst  of  a  melee  with  my  hand  at  his  throat 
and  his  at  mine.  O'Connor  with  a  jiu-jitsu  move- 
ment bent  Farrington 's  other  arm  until  he  re- 
leased me  with  a  cry  of  pain. 

In  front  of  me  I  saw  Craig  grasping  Mrs.  Pop- 
per's wrists  as  in  a  vise.  She  was  glaring  at  him 
like  a  tigress. 

"Do  you  suppose  for  a  moment  that  that  toy  is 
going  to  convince  the  world  that  Henry  Vandam 
has  been  deceived  and  that  the  spirit  which  visited 
him  was  a  fraud?  Is  that  why  you  have  lured 
me  here  under  false  pretences,  to  play  on  my  feel- 
ings, to  insult  me,  to  take  advantage  of  a  lone, 
defenceless  woman,  surrounded  by  hostile  men? 
Shame  on  you,"  she  added  contemptuously. 
"You  call  yourself  a  gentleman,  but  I  call  you  a 
coward." 

Kennedy,  always  calm  and  collected,  ignored 
the  tirade.  His  voice  was  as  cold  as  steel  as  he 
said:  "It  would  do  little  good,  Mrs.  Popper,  to 


156  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

destroy  this  one  link  in  the  chain  I  have  forged. 
The  other  links  are  too  heavy  for  you.  Don't 
forget  the  evidence  of  the  ink.  It  was  your  ink. 
Don't  forget  that  Henry  Vandam  will  not  any 
longer  conceal  that  he  has  altered  his  will  in  fa- 
vour of  you.  To-night  he  goes  from  here  to  his 
lawyer's  to  draw  up  a  new  will  altogether. 
Don't  forget  that  you  have  caused  the  Vandams 
separately  to  have  the  prescription  filled,  and 
that  you  are  now  caught  in  the  act  of  a  double 
murder.  Don't  forget  that  you  had  access  to  the 
Vandam  mansion,  that  you  substituted  the  deadly 
for  the  harmless  capsules.  Don't  forget  that 
your  rappings  announced  the  death  of  one  of  your 
victims  and  urged  the  other,  a  cruelly  wronged 
and  credulous  old  man,  to  leave  millions  to  you 
who  had  deceived  and  would  have  killed  him. 

"No,  the  record  of  the  ghost  on  the  seismo- 
graph was  not  Mr.  Farrington's,  as  I  implied  at 
the  moment  when  you  so  kindly  furnished  this 
additional  proof  of  your  guilt  by  trying  to  de- 
stroy the  evidence.  The  ghost  was  you,  Mrs. 
Popper,  and  ypu  are  at  liberty  to  examine  the 
markings  as  minutely  as  you  please,  but  you  must 
not  destroy  them.  You  are  an  astute  criminal, 
Mrs.  Popper,  but  to-night  you  are  under  arrest 
for  the  murder  of  Mary  Vandam  and  the  at- 
tempted murder  of  Henry  Vandam." 


VI 

THE  DIAMOND  MAKER 

"I'VE  called,  Professor  Kennedy,  to  see  if  we  can 
retain  you  in  a  case  which  I  am  sure  will  tax  even 
your  resources.  Heaven  knows  it  has  taxed 
ours." 

The  visitor  was  a  large,  well-b'uilt  man.  'He 
placed  his  hat  on  the  table  and,  without  taking  off 
his  gloves,  sat  down  in  an  easy  chair  which  he 
completely  filled. 

"Andrews  is  my  name — third  vice-president  of 
the  Great  Eastern  Life  Insurance  Company.  I 
am  the  nominal  head  of  the  company's  private 
detective  force,  and  though  I  have  some  pretty 
clever  fellows  on  my  staff  we've  got  a  case  that, 
so  far,  none  of  us  has  been  able  to  unravel.  I'd 
like  to  consult  you  about  it." 

Kennedy  expressed  his  entire  willingness  to  b'e 
consulted,  and  after  the  usual  formalities  were 
over,  Mr.  Andrews  proceeded: 

"I  suppose  you  are  aware  that  the  large  in- 
surance companies  maintain  quite  elaborate  de- 
tective forces  and  follow  very  keenly  such  of  the 
cases  of  their  policy-holders  as  look  at  all  suspi- 
cious. This  case  which  I  wish  to  put  in  your 

167 


158  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

hands  is  that  of  Mr.  Solomon  Morowitcti,  a 
wealthy  Maiden  Lane  jeweller.  I  suppose  you 
have  read  something  in  the  papers  about  his  sud- 
den death  and  the  strange  robbery  of  his  safe!" 

"Very  little,"  replied  Craig.  "There  hasn't 
been  much  to  read." 

"Of  course  not,  of  course  not,"  said  Mr.  An- 
drews with  some  show  of  gratification.  "I  flat- 
ter myself  that  we  have  pulled  the  wires  so  as  to 
keep  the  thing  out  of  the  papers  as  much  as  pos- 
sible. We  don't  want  to  frighten  the  quarry  till 
the  net  is  spread.  The  point  is,  though,  to  find 
out  who  is  the  quarry.  It's  most  baffling." 

"I  am  at  your  service,"  interposed  Craig 
quietly,  "but  you  will  have  to  enlighten  me  as  to 
the  facts  in  the  case.  As  to  that,  I  know  no  more 
than  the  newspapers." 

' '  Oh,  certainly,  certainly.  That  is  to  say,  you 
know  nothing  at  all  and  can  approach  it  without 
bias."  He  paused  and  then,  seeming  to  notice 
something  in  Craig's  manner,  added  hastily:  "I'll 
be  perfectly  frank  with  you.  The  policy  in  ques- 
tion is  for  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  is  in- 
contestable. His  wife  is  the  beneficiary.  The 
company  is  perfectly  willing  to  pay,  but  we  want 
to  be  sure  that  it  is  all  straight  first.  There  are 
certain  suspicious  circumstances  that  in  justice 
to  ourselves  we  think  should  be  cleared  up.  That 
is  all — believe  me.  We  are  not  seeking  to  avoid 
an  honest  liability." 


THE   DIAMOND  MAKER  159 

"What  are  these  suspicious  circumstances?" 
asked  Craig,  apparently  satisfied  with  the  expla- 
nation. 

"This  is  in  strict  confidence,  gentlemen,"  be- 
gan Mr.  Andrews.  "Mr.  Morowitch,  according 
to  the  story  as  it  comes  to  us,  returned  home  late 
one  night  last  week,  apparently  from  his  office, 
in  a  very  weakened,  a  semi-conscious,  condition. 
His  family  physician,  Doctor  Thornton,  was  sum- 
moned, not  at  once,  but  shortly.  He  pronounced 
Mr.  Morowitch  to  be  suffering  from  a  congestion 
of  the  lungs  that  was  very  like  a  sudden  attack  of 
pneumonia. 

"Mr.  Morowitch  had  at  once  gone  to  bed,  or  at 
least  was  in  bed,  when  the  doctor  arrived,  but  his 
condition  grew  worse  so  rapidly  that  the  doctor 
hastily  resorted  to  oxygen,  under  which  treatment 
he  seemed  to  revive.  The  doctor  had  just 
stepped  out  to  see  another  patient  when  a  hurry 
call  was  sent  to  him  that  Mr.  Morowitch  was  rap- 
idly sinking.  He  died  before  the  doctor  could  re- 
turn. No  statement  whatever  concerning  the 
cause  of  his  sudden  illness  was  made  by  Mr. 
Morowitch,  and  the  death-certificate,  a  copy  of 
which  I  have,  gives  pneumonia  as  the  cause  of 
death.  One  of  our  men  has  seen  Doctor  Thorn- 
ton, but  has  been  able  to  get  nothing  out  of  him. 
Mrs.  Morowitch  was  the  only  person  with  her 
husband  at  the  time." 

There  was  something  in  his  tone  that  made  me 


160  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

take  particular  note  of  this  last  fact,  especially 
as  he  paused  for  an  instant. 

"Now,  perhaps  there  would  be  nothing  sur- 
prising about  it  all,  so  far  at  least,  were  it  not 
for  the  fact  that  the  following  morning,  when  his 
junior  partner,  Mr.  Kahan,  opened  the  place  of 
business,  or  rather  went  to  it,  for  it  was  to  re- 
main closed,  of  course,  he  found  that  during  the 
night  someone  had  visited  it.  The  lock  on  the 
great  safe,  which  contained  thousands  of  dollars' 
worth  of  diamonds,  was  intact;  but  in  the  top  of 
the  safe  a  huge  hole  was  found — an  irregular, 
round  hole,  big  enough  to  put  your  foot  through. 
Imagine  it,  Professor  Kennedy,  a  great  hole  in  a 
safe  that  is  made  of  chrome  steel,  a  safe  that, 
short  of  a  safety-deposit  vault,  ought  to  be  about 
the  strongest  thing  on  earth. 

"Why,  that  steel  would  dull  and  splinter  even 
the  finest  diamond-drill  before  it  made  an  impres- 
sion. The  mere  taking  out  and  refitting  of  drills 
into  the  brace  would  be  a  most  lengthy  process. 
Eighteen  or  twenty  hours  is  the  time  by  actual 
test  which  it  would  take  to  bore  such  a  hole 
through  those  laminated  plates,  even  if  there  were 
means  of  exerting  artificial  pressure.  As  for  the 
police,  they  haven't  even  a  theory  yet." 

"And  the  diamonds?" 

"All  gone — everything  of  any  value  was  gone. 
Even  the  letter-files  were  ransacked.  His  desk 
was  broken  open,  and  papers  of  some  nature  had 


THE   DIAMOND   MAKER  161 

tieen  taken  out  of  it.  Thorough  is  no  name  for 
the  job.  Isn't  that  enough  to  arouse  suspicion?" 

"I  should  like  to  see  that  safe,"  was  all  Ken- 
nedy said. 

( 'So  you  shall,  so  you  shall,"  said  Mr.  An- 
drews. ' '  Then  we  may  retain  you  in  our  service  I 
My  car  is  waiting  down-stairs.  We  can  go  right 
down  to  Maiden  Lane  if  you  wish." 

"You  may  retain  me  on  one  condition,"  said 
Craig  without  moving.  "I  am  to  he  free  to  get 
at  the  truth  whether  it  benefits  or  hurts  the  com- 
pany, and  the  case  is  to  be  entirely  in  my  hands.  '* 

"Hats  on,"  agreed  Mr.  Andrews,  reaching  in 
his  vest  pocket  and  pulling  out  three  or  four 
brevas.  "My  chauffeur  is  quite  a  driver.  He 
can  almost  beat  the  subway  down." 

"First,  to  my  laboratory,"  interposed  Craig. 
"It  will  take  only  a  few  minutes." 

We  drove  up  to  the  university  and  stopped  on 
the  campus  while  Craig  hurried  into  the  Chem- 
istry Building  to  get  something. 

"I  like  your  professor  of  criminal  science,'* 
said  Andrews  to  me,  blowing  a  huge  fragrant 
cloud  of  smoke. 

I,  for  my  part,  liked  the  vice-president.  He 
was  a  man  who  seemed  thoroughly  to  enjoy  life, 
to  have  most  of  the  good  things,  and  a  capacity; 
for  getting  out  of  them  all  that  was  humanly  pos- 
sible. He  seemed  to  be  particularly  enjoying 
this  Morowitch  case. 


162  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"He  has  solved  some  knotty  cases,"  was  all  I 
said.  "I've  come  to  believe  there  is  no  limit  to 
his  resourcefulness." 

"I  hope  not.  He's  up  against  a  tough  one  this 
trip,  though,  my  boy." 

I  did  not  even  resent  the  "my  boy."  Andrews 
was  one  of  those  men  in  whom  we  newspaper 
writers  instinctively  believe.  I  knew  that  it 
would  be  "pens  lifted"  only  so  long  as  the  case 
was  incomplete.  When  the  time  comes  with  such 
men  they  are  ready  to  furnish  us  the  best  "copy" 
in  the  world. 

Kennedy  quickly  rejoined  us,  carrying  a  couple 
of  little  glass  bottles  with  ground-glass  stoppers. 

Morowitch  &  Co.  was,  of  course,  closed  when  we 
arrived,  but  we  had  no  trouble  in  being  admitted 
by  the  Central  Office  man  who  had  been  detailed 
to  lock  the  barn  door  after  the  horse  was  stolen. 
It  was  precisely  as  Mr.  Andrews  had  said.  Mr. 
Kahan  showed  us  the  safe.  Through  the  top  a 
great  hole  had  been  made — I  say  made,  for  at  the 
moment  I  was  at  a  loss  to  know  whether  it  had 
been  cut,  drilled,  burned,  blown  out,  or  what-not. 

Kennedy  examined  the  edges  of  the  hole  care- 
fully, and  just  the  trace  of  a  smile  of  satisfaction 
flitted  over  his  face  as  he  did  so.  Without  say- 
ing a  word  he  took  the  glass  stopper  out  of  the 
larger  bottle  which  he  had  brought  and  poured 
the  contents  on  the  top  of  the  safe  near  the  hole. 
There  it  lay,  a  little  mound  of  reddish  powder. 


THE   DIAMOND   MAKER  163 

Kennedy  took  a  little  powder  of  another  kind 
from  the  other  bottle  and  lighted  it  with  a  match. 

" Stand  back — close  to  the  wall,"  he  called  as 
he  dropped  the  burning  mass  on  the  red  powder. 
In  two  or  three  leaps  he  joined  us  at  the  far  end 
of  the  room. 

Almost  instantly  a  dazzling,  intense  flame  broke 
out,  and  sizzled  and  crackled.  With  bated  breath 
we  watched.  It  was  almost  incredible,  but  that 
glowing  mass  of  powder  seemed  literally  to  be 
sinking,  sinking  right  down  into  the  cold  steel. 
In  tense  silence  we  waited.  On  the  ceiling  we 
could  still  see  the  reflection  of  the  molten  mass  in 
the  cup  which  it  had  burned  for  itself  in  the  top 
of  the  safe. 

At  last  it  fell  through  into  the  safe — fell  as  the 
burning  roof  of  a  frame  building  would  fall  into 
the  building.  No  one  spoke  a  word,  but  as  we 
cautiously  peered  over  the  top  of  the  safe  we  in- 
stinctively turned  to  Kennedy  for  an  explanation. 
The  Central  Office  man,  with  eyes  as  big  as  half- 
dollars,  acted  almost  as  if  he  would  have  liked  to 
clap  the  irons  on  Kennedy.  For  there  in  the  top 
of  the  safe  was  another  hole,  smaller  but  identical 
in  nature  with  the  first  one. 

"Thermit,'*  was  all  Kennedy  said. 

"  Thermit  ?"  echoed  Andrews,  shifting  ttie; 
cigar  which  he  had  allowed  to  go  out  in  the  ex- 
citement. 

"Yes,  an  invention  of  a  chemist  named  Gold- 


164  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

schmidt,  of  Essen,  Germany.  It  is  a  compound 
of  iron  oxide,  such  as  comes  off  a  blacksmith's 
anvil  or  the  rolls  of  a  rolling-mill,  and  powdered 
metallic  aluminum.  You  could  thrust  a  red-hot 
bar  into  it  without  setting  it  off,  but  when  you 
light  a  little  magnesium  powder  and  drop  it  on 
thermit,  a  combustion  is  started  that  quickly 
reaches  fifty-four  hundred  degrees  Fahrenheit. 
It  has  the  peculiar  property  of  concentrating  its 
heat  to  the  immediate  spot  on  which  it  is  placed. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  oxidising  agents 
known,  and  it  doesn't  even  melt  the  rest  of  the 
steel  surface.  You  see  how  it  ate  its  way  through 
the  steel.  Either  black  or  red  thermit  will  do  the 
trick  equally  well." 

No  one  said  anything.  There  was  nothing  to 
say. 

"Someone  uncommonly  clever,  or  instructed 
by  someone  uncommonly  clever,  must  have  done 
that  job,"  added  Craig.  "Well,  there  is  nothing 
more  to  be  done  here,"  he  added,  after  a  cursory 
look  about  the  office.  "Mr.  Andrews,  may  I  have 
a  word  with  you?  Come  on,  Jameson.  Good 
day,  Mr.  Kahan.  Good  day,  Officer. " 

Outside  we  stopped  for  a  moment  at  the  door 
of  Andrews 's  car. 

"I  shall  want  to  see  Mr.  Moro witch's  papers 
at  home,"  said  Craig,  "and  also  to  call  on  Doctor 
Thornton.  Do  you  think  I  shall  have  any  diffi- 
culty!" 


THE   DIAMOND   MAKER  165 

"Not  at  all,"  replied  Mr.  Andrews,  "not  at  all. 
I  will  go  with  you  myself  and  see  that  you  have 
none.  Say,  Professor  Kennedy,"  he  broke  out, 
"that  was  marvellous.  I  never  dreamed  such  a 
thing  was  possible.  But  don't  you  think  you 
could  have  learned  something  more  up  there  in 
the  office  by  looking  around?" 

"I  did  learn  it,"  answered  Kennedy.  "The 
lock  on  the  door  was  intact — whoever  did  the  job 
let  himself  in  by  a  key.  There  is  no  other  way 
to  get  in." 

Andrews  gave  a  low  whistle  and  glanced  in- 
voluntarily up  at  the  window  with  the  sign  of 
Morowitch  &  Co.  in  gold  letters  several  floors 
above. 

"Don't  look  up.  I  think  that  was  Kahan  look- 
ing out  at  us,"  he  said,  fixing  his  eyes  on  his 
cigar.  "I  wonder  if  he  knows  more  about  this 
than  he  has  told!  He  was  the  'company,'  you 
know,  but  his  interest  in  the  business  was  only 
very  slight.  By  George — " 

"Not  too  fast,  Mr.  Andrews,"  interrupted 
Craig.  "We  have  still  to  see  Mrs.  Morowitch 
and  the  doctor  before  we  form  any  theories." 

"A  very  handsome  woman,  too,"  said  An- 
drews, as  we  seated  ourselves  in  the  can  "A 
good  deal  younger  than  Morowitch.  Say,  Kahan 
isn't  a  bad-looking  chap,  either,  is  he?  I  hear  he 
was  a  very  frequent  visitor  at  his  partner's  house. 
Well,  which  first,  Mrs.  M.  or  the  doctor?" 


166  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

"The  house/'  answered  Craig. 

Mr.  Andrews  introduced  us  to  Mrs.  Morowitch, 
who  was  in  very  deep  mourning,  which  served,  as 
I  could  not  help  noticing,  rather  to  heighten  than 
lessen  her  beauty.  By  contrast  it  brought  out  the 
rich  deep  colour  of  her  face  and  the  graceful  lines 
of  her  figure.  She  was  altogether  a  very  attract- 
ive young  widow. 

She  seemed  to  have  a  sort  of  fear  of  Andrews, 
whether  merely  because  he  represented  the  in- 
surance company  on  which  so  much  depended  or 
because  there  were  other  reasons  for  fear,  I  could 
not,  of  course,  make  out.  Andrews  was  very 
courteous  and  polite,  yet  I  caught  myself  asking 
if  it  was  not  a  professional  rather  than  a  per- 
sonal politeness.  Eemembering  his  stress  on  the 
fact  that  she  was  alone  with  her  husband  when  he 
died,  it  suddenly  flashed  across  my  mind  that 
somewhere  I  had  read  of  a  detective  who,  as  his 
net  was  being  woven  about  a  victim,  always  grew 
more  and  more  ominously  polite  toward  the  vic- 
tim. I  know  that  Andrews  suspected  her  of  a 
close  connection  with  the  case.  As  for  myself, 
I  don't  know  what  I  suspected  as  yet. 

No  objection  was  offered  to  our  request  to  ex- 
amine Mr.  Morowitch 's  personal  effects  in  the 
library,  and  accordingly  Craig  ransacked  the  desk 
and  the  letter-file.  There  was  practically  nothing 
to  be  discovered. 

"Had  Mr.  Morowitch  ever  received  any  threats 


THE   DIAMOND   MAKER  167 

of  robbery?"  asked  Craig,  as  he  stood  before  the 
desk. 

"Not  that  I  know  of,"  replied  Mrs.  Moro witch. 
"Of  course  every  jeweller  who  carries  a  large 
stock  of  diamonds  must  be  careful.  But  I  don't 
think  my  husband  had  any  special  reason  to  fear 
robbery.  At  least  he  never  said  anything  about 
it.  Why  do  you  ask?" 

1 1  Oh,  nothing.  I  merely  thought  there  might  be 
some  hint  as  to  the  motives  of  the  robbery, ' '  said 
Craig.  He  was  fingering  one  of  those  desk-cal- 
endars which  have  separate  leaves  for  each  day 
with  blank  spaces  for  appointments. 

"  *  Close  deal  Poissan,'  "  he  read  slowly  from 
one  of  the  entries,  as  if  to  himself.  "That's 
strange.  It  was  the  correspondence  under  the 
letter  'P?  that  was  destroyed  at  the  office,  and 
there  is  nothing  in  the  letter-file  here,  either. 
Who  was  Poissan?" 

Mrs.  Morowitch  hesitated,  either  from  igno- 
rance or  from  a  desire  to  evade  the  question.  "A 
chemist,  I  think,"  she  said  doubtfully.  "My  hus, 
band  had  some  dealings  with  him — some  discov- 
ery he  was  going  to  buy.  I  don't  know  anything 
about  it.  I  thought  the  deal  was  off." 

"The  deal?" 

"Really,  Mr.  Kennedy,  you  had  better  ask  Mr. 
Kahan.  My  husband  talked  very  little  to  me 
about  business  affairs." 

"But  what  was  the  discovery?" 


168  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

"I  don't  know.  I  only  heard  Mr.  Morowitcti 
and  Mr.  Kalian  refer  to  some  deal  about  a  discov- 
ery regarding  diamonds." 

"Then  Mr.  Kahan  knows  about  it!" 

"I  presume  so." 

"Thank  you,  Mrs.  Morowitch,"  said  Kennedy 
when  it  was  evident  that  she  either  could  not  or 
would  not  add  anything  to  what  she  had  said. 
"Pardon  us  for  causing  all  this  trouble." 

"No  trouble  at  all,"  she  replied  graciously, 
though  I  could  see  she  was  intent  on  every  word1 
and  motion  of  Kennedy  and  Andrews. 

Kennedy  stopped  the  car  at  a  drug-store  a  few 
blocks  away  and  asked  for  the  business  telephone 
directory.  In  an  instant,  under  chemists,  he  put 
his  finger  on  the  name  of  Poissan — "Henri  Pois- 
san,  electric  furnaces, — William  St.,"  he  read. 
"I  shall  visit  him  to-morrow  morning.  Now  fou 
the  doctor." 

Doctor  Thornton  was  an  excellent  specimen  of 
the  genus  physician  to  the  wealthy — polished, 
cool,  suave.  One  of  Mr.  Andrews 's  men,  as  I  have 
said,  had  seen  him  already,  but  the  interview  had 
been  very  unsatisfactory.  Evidently,  however, 
the  doctor  had  been  turning  something  over  in  his 
mind  since  then  and  had  thought  better  of  it.  At 
any  rate,  his  manner  was  cordial  enough  now. 

As  he  closed  the  doors  to  his  office,  he  began  to 
pace  the  floor.  "Mr.  Andrews,"  he  said,  "I  am 
in  some  doubt  whether  I  had  better  tell  you  or 


THE   DIAMOND   MAKER  169 

the  coroner  what  I  know.  There  are  certain  pro- 
fessional secrets  that  a  doctor  must,  as  a  duty  to 
his  patients,  conceal.  That  is  professional  ethics. 
But  there  are  also  cases  when,  as  a  matter  of  pub- 
lic policy,  a  doctor  should  speak  out." 

He  stopped  and  faced  us. 

"I  don't  mind  telling  you  that  I  dislike  the  pub- 
licity that  would  attend  any  statement  I  might 
make  to  the  coroner." 

" Exactly,"  said  Andrews.  "I  appreciate  your 
position  exactly.  Your  other  patients  would  not 
care  to  see  you  involved  in  a  scandal — or  at  least 
you  would  not  care  to  have  them  see  you  so  in- 
volved, with  all  the  newspaper  notoriety  such  a 
thing  brings. ' ' 

Doctor  Thornton  shot  a  quick  glance  at  [An- 
drews, as  if  he  would  like  to  know  just  how  mucli 
his  visitor  knew  or  suspected. 

Andrews  drew  a  paper  from  his  pocket.  "This 
is  a  copy  of  the  death-certificate,"  he  said. 
"The  Board  of  Health  has  furnished  it  to  us. 
Our  physicians  at  the  insurance  company  tell  me 
it  is  rather  extraordinary — vague.  A  word  from 
us  calling  the  attention  of  the  proper  authorities 
to  it  would  be  sufficient,  I  think.  But,  Doctor, 
that  is  just  the  point.  We  do  not  desire  publicity, 
any  more  than  you  do.  We  could  have  the  body 
of  Mr.  Morowitch  exhumed  and  examined,  but  I 
prefer  to  get  the  facts  in  the  case  without  resort- 
ing to  such  extreme  measures. ' ' 


170  ,THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"It  would  do  no  good,"  interrupted  the  doctor 
hastily.  "And  if  you'll  save  me  the  publicity, 
I'll  tell  you  why." 

Andrews  nodded,  but  still  held  the  death-cer- 
tificate where  the  doctor  was  constantly  reminded 
of  it. 

"In  that  certificate  I  have  put  down  the  cause 
of  death  as  congestion  of  the  lungs  due  to  an 
acute  attack  of  pneumonia.  That  is  substantially 
correct,  as  far  as  it  goes.  When  I  was  summoned 
to  see  Mr.  Morowitch  I  found  him  in  a  semi-con- 
scious state  and  scarcely  breathing.  Mrs.  Moro- 
witch told  me  that  he  had  been  brought  home  in  a 
taxicab  by  a  man  who  had  picked  him  up  on  Wil- 
liam Street  I'm  frank  to  say  that  at  first  sight 
I  thought  it  was  a  case  of  plain  intoxication,  for 
Mr.  Morowitch  sometimes  indulged  a  little  freely 
when  he  made  a  splendid  deal.  I  smelled  his 
breath,  which  was  very  feeble.  It  had  a  sickish 
sweet  odour,  but  that  did  not  impress  me  at  the 
time.  I  applied  my  stethoscope  to  his  lungs. 
There  was  a  very  marked  congestion,  and  I  made 
as  my  working  diagnosis  pneumonia.  It  was  a 
case  for  quick  and  heroic  action.  In  a  very  few 
minutes  I  had  a  tank  of  oxygen  from  the  hospi- 
tal. 

"In  the  meantime  I  had  thought  over  that 
sweetish  odour,  and  it  flashed  on  my  mind  that  it 
might,  after  all,  be  a  case  of  poisoning.  When 
the  oxygen  arrived  I  administered  it  at  once.  As 


THE   DIAMOND   MAKER  171 

it  happens,  the  Rockefeller  Institute  has  just  pub- 
lished a  report  of  experiments  with  a  new  anti- 
dote for  various  poisons,  which  consists  simply 
in  a  new  method  of  enforced  breathing  and  throw- 
ing off  the  poison  by  oxidising  it  in  that  way.  In 
either  case — the  pneumonia  theory  or  the  poison 
theory — this  line  of  action  was  the  best  that  I 
could  have  adopted  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  I 
gave  him  some  strychnin  to  strengthen  his  heart 
and  by  hard  work  I  had  him  resting  apparently  a 
little  easier.  A  nurse  had  been  sent  for,  but  had 
not  arrived  when  a  messenger  came  to  me  telling 
of  a  very  sudden  illness  of  Mrs.  Morey,  the  wife 
of  the  steel-magnate.  As  the  Morey  home  is  only 
a  half -block  away,  I  left  Mr.  Moro  witch,  with 
very  particular  instructions  to  his  wife  as  to  what 
to  do. 

"I  had  intended  to  return  immediately,  but  be- 
fore I  got  back  Mr.  Morowitch  was  dead.  Now 
I  think  I've  told  you  all.  You  see,  it  was  nothing 
but  a  suspicion — hardly  enough  to  warrant  mak- 
ing a  fuss  about.  I  made  out  the  death-certifi- 
cate, as  you  see.  Probably  that  would  have  been 
all  there  was  to  it  if  I  hadn't  heard  of  this  incom- 
prehensible robbery.  That  set  me  thinking 
again.  There,  I'm  glad  I've  got  it  out  of  my 
system.  I've  thought  about  it  a  good  deal  since 
your  man  was  here  to  see  me." 

"What  do  you  suspect  was  the  cause  of  that 
sweetish  odour!"  asked  Kennedy. 


172  THE  SILENT   BULLET 

The  doctor  hesitated.  "Mind,  it  is  only  a  sus- 
ipicion.  Cyanide  of  potassium  or  cyanogen  gas ; 
either  would  give  such  an  odour." 

"Your  treatment  would  have  been  just  the 
same  had  you  been  certain?" 

"Practically  the  same,  the  Eockefeller  treat- 
ment." 

"Could  it  have  been  suicide?"  asked  Andrews. 

"There  was  no  motive  for  it,  I  believe,"  re- 
plied the  doctor. 

"But  was  there  any  such  poison  in  the  Moro- 
witch  house?" 

"I  know  that  they  were  much  interested  in  pho- 
tography. Cyanide  of  potassium  is  used  in  cer- 
tain processes  in  photography." 

"Who  was  interested  in  photography,  Mr.  or 
Mrs.  Morowitch?" 

"Both  of  them." 

"Was  Mrs.  Morowitch?" 

"Both  of  them,"  repeated  the  doctor  hastily. 
It  was  evident  how  Andrews 's  questions  were 
tending,  and  it  was  also  evident  that  the  doctor 
5did  not  wish  to  commit  himself  or  even  to  be  mis- 
understood. 

Kennedy  had  sat  silently  for  some  minutes, 
turning  the  thing  over  in  his  mind.  Apparently 
disregarding  Andrews  entirely,  he  now  asked, 
"Doctor,  supposing  it  had  been  cyanogen  gas 
which  caused  the  congestion  of  the  lungs,  and  sup- 
posing it  had  not  been  inhaled  in  quantities  large 


THE   DIAMOND  MAKER  173 

enough  to  kill  outright,  do  you  nevertheless  feel 
that  Mr.  Moro witch  was  in  a  weak  enough  con- 
dition to  die  as  a  result  of  the  congestion  pro- 
duced by  the  gas  after  the  traces  of  the  cyanogen 
had  been  perhaps  thrown  off?" 

"That  is  precisely  the  impression  which  I 
.wished  to  convey." 

"Might  I  ask  whether  in  his  semi-conscious 
state  he  said  anything  that  might  at  all  serve  as 
a  clue!" 

"He  talked  ramblingly,  incoherently.  As  near 
as  I  can  remember  it,  he  seemed  to  believe  him- 
self to  have  become  a  millionaire,  a  billionaire. 
He  talked  of  diamonds,  diamonds,  diamonds.  He 
seemed  to  be  picking  them  up,  running  his  fingers 
through  them,  and  once  I  remember  he  seemed  to 
want  to  send  for  Mr.  Kahan  and  tell  him  some- 
thing. *I  can  make  them,  Kahan,'  he  said,  'the 
finest,  the  largest,  the  whitest — I  can  make 
them.'  " 

Kennedy  was  all  attention  as  Dr.  Thornton 
added  this  new  evidence. 

"You  know,"  concluded  the  doctor,  "that  in 
cyanogen  poisoning  there  might  be  hallucinations 
of  the  wildest  kind.  But  then,  too,  in  the  delirium 
of  pneumonia  it  might  be  the  same." 

I  could  see  by  the  way  Kennedy  acted  that  for 
the  first  time  a  ray  of  light  had  dawned  upon  him 
in  tracing  out  the  case.  As  we  rose  to  go,  the 
'doctor  shook  hands  with  us.  His  last  words  were 


174  THE    SILENT   BULLET 

said  with  an  air  of  great  relief,  "Gentlemen,  I 
have  eased  my  conscience  considerably." 

As  we  parted  for  the  night  Kennedy  faced  An- 
drews. "You  recall  that  you  promised  me  one 
thing  when  I  took  up  this  case?"  he  asked. 

Andrews  nodded. 

"Then  take  no  steps  until  I  tell  you.  Shadow 
Mrs.  Morowitch  and  Mr.  Kahan,  but  do  not  let 
them  know  you  suspect  them  of  anything.  Let 
me  run  down  this  Poissan  clue.  In  other  words, 
leave  the  case  entirely  in  my  hands  in  other  re- 
spects. Let  me  know  any  new  facts  you  may  un- 
earth, and  some  time  to-morrow  I  shall  call  on 
you,  and  we  will  determine  what  the  next  step  is 
to  be.  Good  night.  I  want  to  thank  you  for  put- 
ting me  in  the  way  of  this  case.  I  think  we  shall 
all  be  surprised  at  the  outcome." 

It  was  late  the  following  afternoon  before  I 
saw  Kennedy  again.  He  was  in  his  laboratory 
winding  two  strands  of  platinum  wire  carefully 
about  a  piece  of  porcelain  and  smearing  on  it 
some  peculiar  black  glassy  granular  substance 
that  came  in  a  sort  of  pencil,  like  a  stick  of  seal- 
ing-wax. I  noticed  that  he  was  very  particular 
to  keep  the  two  wires  exactly  the  same  distance 
from  each  other  throughout  the  entire  length  of 
the  piece  of  porcelain,  but  I  said  nothing  to  dis- 
tract his  attention,  though  a  thousand  questions 
about  the  progress  of  the  case  were  at  my 
tongue's  end. 


THE   DIAMOND   MAKER  175 

Instead  I  watched  him  intently.  The  black  sub- 
stance formed  a  sort  of  bridge  connecting  and 
covering  the  wires.  When  he  had  finished  he 
said:  "Now  you  can  ask  me  your  questions,  while 
I  heat  and  anneal  this  little  contrivance.  I  see 
you  are  bursting  with  curiosity. " 

"Well,  did  you  see  Poissan?"  I  asked. 

Kennedy  continued  to  heat  the  wire-covered 
porcelain.  "I  did,  and  he  is  going  to  give  me  a 
demonstration  of  his  discovery  to-night." 

"His  discovery?" 

"You  remember  Morowitch 's  'hallucination,1 
as  the  doctor  called  it?  That  was  no  hallucina- 
tion ;  that  was  a  reality.  This  man  Poissan  says 
he  has  discovered  a  way  to  make  diamonds  arti- 
ficially out  of  pure  carbon  in  an  electric  furnace. 
Morowitch,  I  believe,  was  to  buy  his  secret.  His 
dream  of  millions  was  a  reality — at  least  to 
him." 

"And  did  Kahan  and  Mrs.  Morowitch  know 
it?"  I  asked  quickly. 

"I  don't  know  yet,"  replied  Craig,  finishing 
the  annealing. 

The  black  glassy  substance  was  now  a  dull 
grey. 

"What's  that  stuff  you  were  putting  on  the 
wire?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  just  a  by-product  made  in  the  manufac- 
ture of  sulphuric  acid,"  answered  Kennedy  airily, 
adding,  as  if  to  change  the  subject:  "I  want  you 


176  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

to  go  with  me  to-night.  I  told  Poissan  I  was  a 
professor  in  the  university  and  that  I  would  bring 
one  of  our  younger  trustees,  the  son  of  the  banker, 
T.  Pierpont  Spencer,  who  might  put  some  capital 
into  his  scheme.  Now,  Jameson,  while  I'm  fin- 
ishing up  my  work  here,  run  over  to  the  apart- 
ment and  get  my  automatic  revolver.  I  may  need 
it  to-night.  I  have  communicated  with  Andrews, 
and  he  will  be  ready.  The  demonstration  will 
take  place  at  half -past-eight  at  Poissan 's  labora- 
tory. I  tried  to  get  him  to  give  it  here,  but  he 
absolutely  refused." 

Half  an  hour  later  I  rejoined  Craig  at  his  lab- 
oratory, and  we  rode  down  to  the  Great  Eastern 
Life  Building. 

Andrews  was  waiting  for  us  in  his  solidly  fur- 
nished office.  Outside  I  noted  a  couple  of  husky 
men,  who  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  orders  from 
their  chief. 

From  the  manner  in  which  the  vice-president 
greeted  us  it  was  evident  that  he  was  keenly  in- 
terested in  what  Kennedy  was  about  to  do.  * '  So 
you  think  Moro witch's  deal  was  a  deal  to  pur- 
chase the  secret  of  diamond-making  I"  he  mused. 

"I  feel  sure  of  it,"  replied  Craig.  "I  felt  sure 
of  it  the  moment  I  looked  up  Poissan  and  found 
that  he  was  a  manufacturer  of  electric  furnaces. 
Don't  you  remember  the  famous  Lemoine  case  in 
London  and  Paris  f ' ' 

"Yes,  but  Lemoine  was  a  fakir  of  the  first 


THE   DIAMOND  MAKER  177 

water,"  said  Andrews.  "Do  you  think  this  man 
is,  too?" 

"That's  what  I'm  going  to  find  out  to-night 
before  I  take  another  step,"  said  Craig.  "Of 
course  there  can  he  no  doubt  that  by  proper  use 
the  electric  furnace  will  make  small,  almost  mi- 
croscopic  diamonds.  It  is  not  unreasonable  to 
suppose  that  some  day  someone  will  be  able  to 
make  large  diamonds  synthetically  by  the  same 
process." 

"Maybe  this  man  has  done  it,"  agreed  An- 
drews. "Who  knows?  I'll  wager  that  if  he  has 
and  that  if  Morowitch  had  bought  an  interest  in 
his  process  Kahan  knew  of  it.  He's  a  sharp  one. 
And  Mrs.  Morowitch  doesn't  let  grass  grow  under 
her  feet,  when  it  comes  to  seeing  the  main  chance 
as  to  money.  Now  just  supposing  Mr.  Moro- 
witch had  bought  an  interest  in  a  secret  like  that 
and  supposing  Kahan  was  in  love  with  Mrs. 
Morowitch  and  that  they — " 

"Let  us  suppose  nothing,  Mr.  Andrews,"  in- 
terrupted Kennedy.  "At  least  not  yet.  Let  me 
see;  it  is  now  ten  minutes  after  eight.  Poissan's 
place  is  only  a  few  blocks  from  here.  I'd  like  to 
get  there  a  few  minutes  early.  Let's  start." 

As  we  left  the  office,  Andrews  signalled  to  the 
two  men  outside,  and  they  quietly  followed  a  few 
feet  in  the  rear,  but  without  seeming  to  be  with 
us. 

Poissan's  laboratory  was  at  the  top  of  a  sort 


178  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

of  loft  building  a  dozen  stories  or  so  high.  It 
was  a  peculiar  building,  with  several  entrances 
besides  a  freight-elevator  at  the  rear  and  fire-es- 
capes that  led  to  adjoining  lower  roofs. 

We  stopped  around  the  corner  in  the  shadow, 
and  Kennedy  and  Andrews  talked  earnestly. 
'As  near  as  I  could  make  out  Kennedy  was  insist- 
ing that  it  would  be  best  for  Andrews  and  his 
men  not  to  enter  the  building  at  all,  but  wait 
down-stairs  while  he  and  I  went  up.  At  last  the 
arrangement  was  agreed  on. 

"Here,"  said  Kennedy,  undoing  a  package  he 
had  carried,  "is  a  little  electric  bell  with  a  couple 
of  fresh  dry  batteries  attached  to  it,  and  wires 
that  will  reach  at  least  four  hundred  feet.  You 
and  the  men  wait  in  the  shadow  here  by  this  side 
entrance  for  five  minutes  after  Jameson  and  I  go 
up.  Then  you  must  engage  the  night  watchman 
in  some  way.  While  he  is  away  you  will  find  two 
wires  dangling  down  the  elevator  shaft.  Attach 
them  to  these  wires  from  the  bell  and  the  batteries 
— these  two — you  know  how  to  do  that.  The 
wires  will  be  hanging  in  the  third  shaft — only 
one  elevator  is  running  at  night,  the  first.  The 
moment  you  hear  the  bell  begin  to  ring,  jump  into 
the  elevator  and  come  up  to  the  twelfth  floor — - 
we'll  need  you." 

As  Kennedy  and  I  rode  up  in  the  elevator  I 
could  not  help  thinking  what  an  ideal  place  a 
down-town  office-building  is  for  committing  a 


THE   DIAMOND   MAKER  179 

crime,  even  at  this  early  hour  of  the  evening.  If 
the  streets  were  deserted,  the  office-buildings  were 
positively  uncanny  in  their  grim,  black  silence 
with  only  here  and  there  a  light 

The  elevator  in  the  first  shaft  shot  down  again 
to  the  ground  floor,  and  as  it  disappeared  Ken- 
nedy took  two  spools  of  wire  from  his  pocket  and 
hastily  shoved  them  through  the  lattice  work  of 
the  third  elevator  shaft.  They  quickly  unrolled, 
and  I  could  hear  them  strike  the  top  of  the  empty 
car  below  in  the  basement.  That  meant  that  An- 
drews on  the  ground  floor  could  reach  the  wires 
and  attach  them  to  the  bell. 

Quickly  in  the  darkness  Kennedy  attached  the 
ends  of  Ihe  wires  to  the  curious  little  coil  I  had 
seen  him  working  on  in  the  laboratory,  and  we 
proceeded  down  the  hall  to  the  rooms  occupied  by 
Poissan.  Kennedy  had  allowed  for  the  wire  to 
reach  from  the  elevator-shaft  up  this  hall,  also, 
and  as  he  walked  he  paid  it  out  in  such  a  manner 
that  it  fell  on  the  floor  close  to  the  wall,  where, 
in  the  darkness,  it  would  never  be  noticed  or 
stumbled  over. 

Around  an  "L"  in  the  hall  I  could  see  a  ground- 
glass  window  with  a  light  shining  through  it. 
Kennedy  stopped  at  the  window  and  quickly 
placed  the  little  coil  on  the  ledge,  close  up  against 
the  glass,  with  the  wires  running  from  it  down 
the  hall.  Then  we  entered. 

"On  time  to  the  minute,  Professor,"  exclaimed 


180  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

Poissan,  snapping  his  watch.  "And  this,  I  pre- 
sume, is  the  banker  who  is  interested  in  my  great 
discovery  of  making  artificial  diamonds  of  any 
size  or  colour?"  he  added,  indicating  me. 

"Yes,"  answered  Craig,  "as  'I  told  you,  a  son 
of  Mr.  T.  Pierpont  Spencer." 

I  shook  hands  with  as  much  dignity  as  I  could 
assume,  for  the  role  of  impersonation  was  a  new 
one  to  me. 

Kennedy  carelessly  laid  his  coat  and  hat  on 
the  inside  ledge  of  the  ground-glass  window,  just 
opposite  the  spot  where  he  had  placed  the  little 
coil  on  the  other  side  of  the  glass.  I  noted  that 
the  window  was  simply  a  large  pane  of  wire-glass 
set  in  the  wall  for  the  purpose  of  admitting  light 
in  the  daytime  from  the  hall  outside. 

The  whole  thing  seemed  eerie  to  me — especially 
as  Poissan 's  assistant  was  a  huge  fellow  and  had 
an  evil  look  such  as  I  had  seen  in  pictures  of 
the  inhabitants  of  quarters  of  Paris  which  one 
does  not  frequent  except  in  the  company  of  a 
safe  guide.  I  was  glad  Kennedy  had  brought  his 
revolver,  and  rather  vexed  that  he  had  not  told 
me  to  do  likewise.  However,  I  trusted  that 
Craig  knew  what  he  was  about. 

We  seated  ourselves  some  distance  from  a 
table  on  which  was  a  huge,  plain,  oblong  con- 
trivance that  reminded  me  of  the  diagram  of  a 
parallelepiped  which  had  caused  so  much  trouble 
in  my  solid  geometry  at  college. 


THE   DIAMOND   MAKER  181 

"  That's  the  electric  furnace,  sir,"  said  Craig 
to  me  with  an  assumed  deference,  becoming  a 
college  professor  explaining  things  to  the  son  of 
a  great  financier.  "You  see  the  electrodes  at 
either  end?  When  the  current  is  turned  on  and 
led  through  them  into  the  furnace  you  can  get 
the  most  amazing  temperatures  in  the  crucible. 
The  most  refractory  of  chemical  compounds  can 
be  broken  up  by  that  heat.  What  is  the  highest 
temperature  you  have  attained,  Professor!" 

"Something  over  three  thousand  degrees  Cen- 
tigrade," replied  Poissan,  as  he  and  his  assistant 
busied  themselves  about  the  furnace. 

We  sat  watching  him  in  silence. 

"Ah,  gentlemen,  now  I  am  ready,"  he  ex- 
claimed at  length,  when  everything  was  arranged 
to  his  satisfaction.  "You  see,  here  is  a  lump  of 
sugar  carbon — pure  amorphous  carbon.  Dia- 
monds, as  you  know,  are  composed  of  pure  car- 
bon crystallised  under  enormous  pressure.  Now, 
my  theory  is  that  if  we  can  combine  an  enormous 
pressure  and  an  enormous  heat  we  can  make  dia- 
monds artificially.  The  problem  of  pressure  is 
the  thing,  for  here  in  the  furnace  we  have  the 
necessary  heat.  It  occurred  to  me  that  when 
molten  cast  iron  cools  it  exerts  a  tremendous 
pressure.  That  pressure  is  what  I  use." 

"You  know,  Spencer,  solid  iron  floats  on  mol- 
ten iron  like  solid  water — ice — floats  on  liquid 
water,"  explained  Craig  to  me. 


182  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

Poissan  nodded.  "I  take  this  sugar  carbon 
and  place  it  in  this  soft  iron  cup.  Then  I  screw 
on  this  cap  over  the  cup,  so.  Now  I  place  this 
mass  of  iron  scraps  in  the  crucible  of  the  furnace 
and  start  the  furnace." 

He  turned  a  switch,  and  long  yellowish-blue 
sheets  of  flame  spurted  out  from  the  electrodes 
on  either  side.  It  was  weird,  gruesome.  One 
could  feel  the  heat  of  the  tremendous  electric  dis- 
charge. 

As  I  looked  at  the  bluish-yellow  flames  they 
gradually  changed  to  a  beautiful  purple,  and  a 
sickish  sweet  odour  filled  the  room.  The  furnace 
roared  at  first,  but  as  the  vapors  increased  it  be^ 
came  a  better  conductor  of  the  electricity,  and  the 
roaring  ceased. 

In  almost  no  time  the  mass  of  iron  scraps  be- 
came molten.  Suddenly  Poissan  plunged  the 
cast-iron  cup  into  the  seething  mass.  The  cup 
floated  and  quickly  began  to  melt.  As  it  did  so 
he  waited  attentively  until  the  proper  moment. 
Then  with  a  deft  motion  he  seized  the  whole  thing 
with  a  long  pair  of  tongs  and  plunged  it  into  a 
vat  of  running  water.  A  huge  cloud  of  steam 
filled  the  room. 

I  felt  a  drowsy  sensation  stealing  over  me  as 
the  sickish  sweet  smell  from  the  furnace  in- 
creased. Gripping  the  chair,  I  roused  myself 
and  watched  Poissan  attentively.  He  was  work- 
ing rapidly.  As  the  molten  mass  cooled  and 


THE   DIAMOND   MAKER  183 

solidified  he  took  it  out  of  the  water  and  laid  it 
on  an  anvil. 

Then  his  assistant  began  to  hammer  it  with 
careful,  sharp  blows,  chipping  off  the  outside. 

"You  see,  we  have  to  get  down  to  the  core  of 
carbon  gently,'*  he  said,  as  he  picked  up  the  little 
pieces  of  iron  and  threw  them  into  a  scrap-box. 
"First  rather  brittle  cast  iron,  then  hard  iron, 
then  iron  and  carbon,  then  some  black  diamonds, 
and  in  the  very  centre  the  diamonds. 

"Ah!  we  are  getting  to  them.  Here  is  a  small 
diamond.  See,  Mr.  Spencer — gently  Frangois — > 
we  shall  come  to  the  large  ones  presently." 

"One  moment,  Professor  Poissan,"  inter- 
rupted Craig;  "let  your  assistant  break  them  out 
while  I  stand  over  him. ' ' 

"Impossible.  You  would  not  know  when  you 
saw  them.  They  are  just  rough  stones." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  would." 

"No,  stay  where  you  are.  Unless  I  attend  to 
it  the  diamonds  might  be  ruined." 

There  was  something  peculiar  about  his  insis- 
tence, but  after  he  picked  out  the  next  diamond 
I  was  hardly  prepared  for  Kennedy's  next  re- 
mark. 

"Let  me  see  the  palms  of  your  hands." 

Poissan  shot  an  angry  glance  at  Kennedy,  but 
he  did  not  open  his  hands. 

"I  merely  wish  to  convince  you,  Mr.  Spencer," 
said  Kennedy  to  me,  "that  it  is  no  sleight-of- 


184  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

hand  trick  and  that  the  professor  has  not  several 
uncut  stones  palmed  in  his  hand  like  a  presti- 
digitator." 

The  Frenchman  faced  us,  his  face  livid  with 
rage.  "You  call  me  a  prestidigitator,  a  fraud — 
you  shall  suffer  for  that!  Sacrebleu!  Venire  du 
Saint  Gris!  No  man  ever  insults  the  honour  of 
Poissan.  Francois,  water  on  the  electrodes!" 

The  assistant  dashed  a  few  drops  of  water  on 
the  electrodes.  The  sickish  odour  increased  tre- 
mendously. I  felt  myself  almost  going,  but  with 
an  effort  I  again  roused  myself.  I  wondered 
how  Craig  stood  the  fumes,  for  I  suffered  an  in- 
tense headache  and  nausea. 

"Stop!"  Craig  thundered.  "There's  enough 
cyanogen  in  this  room  already.  I  know  your 
game — the  water  forms  acetylene  with  the  car- 
bon, and  that  uniting  with  the  nitrogen  of  the 
air  under  the  terrific  heat  of  the  electric  arc  forms 
hydrocyanic  acid.  Would  you  poison  us,  too? 
Do  you  think  you  can  put  me  unconscious  out  on 
the  street  and  have  a  society  doctor  diagnose  my 
case  as  pneumonia?  Or  do  you  think  we  shall  die 
quietly  in  some  hospital  as  a  certain  New  York 
banker  did  last  year  after  he  had  watched  an  al- 
chemist make  silver  out  of  apparently  nothing?" 

The  effect  on  Poissan  was  terrible.  He  ad- 
vanced toward  Kennedy,  the  veins  in  his  face 
fairly  standing  out.  Shaking  his  forefinger,  he 
shouted:  "You  know  that,  do  you?  You  are  no 


THE   DIAMOND  MAKER  185 

professor,  and  this  is  no  banker.  You  are  spies, 
spies.  You  come  from  the  friends  of  Moro- 
witch,  do  you?  You  have  gone  too  far  with  me." 

Kennedy  said  nothing,  but  retreated  and  took 
his  coat  and  hat  off  the  window  ledge.  The  hide- 
ous penetrating  light  of  the  tongues  of  flame  from 
the  furnace  played  on  the  ground-glass  window. 

Poissan  laughed  a  hollow  laugh. 

"Put  down  your  hat  and  coat,  Mistair  Ken- 
nedy," he  hissed.  "The  door  has  been  locked 
ever  since  you  have  been  here*  Those  windows 
are  barred,  the  telephone  wire  is  cut,  and  it  is 
three  hundred  feet  to  the  street.  We  shall  leave 
you  here  when  the  fumes  have  overcome  you. 
Francois  and  I  can  stand  them  up  to  a  point,  and 
when  we  reach  that  point  we  are  going." 

Instead  of  being  cowed  Kennedy  grew  bolder, 
though  I,  for  my  part,  felt  so  weakened  that  I 
feared  the  outcome  of  a  hand-to-hand  encounter 
with  either  Poissan  or  Francois,  who  appeared 
as  fresh  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  They  were 
hurriedly  preparing  to  leave  us. 

"That  would  do  you  no  good,"  Kennedy  re- 
joined, "for  we  have  no  safe  full  of  jewels  for 
you  to  rob.  There  are  no  keys  to  offices  to  be 
stolen  from  our  pockets.  And  let  me  tell  you— 
you  are  not  the  only  man  in  New  York  who  knows 
the  secret  of  thermit.  I  have  told  the  secret  to 
the  police,  and  they  are  only  waiting  to  find  who 
'destroyed  Morowitch's  correspondence  under  the 


186  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

letter  'P'  to  apprehend  the  robber  of  his  safe. 
Your  secret  is  out." 

"Bevenge!  revenge!"  Poissan  cried.  "I  will 
have  revenge.  Francois,  bring  out  the  jewels — 
ha!  ha! — here  in  this  bag  are  the  jewels  of  Mr. 
Morowitch.  To-night  Francois  and  I  will  go 
down  by  the  back  elevator  to  a  secret  exit.  In 
two  hours  all  your  police  in  New  York  cannot 
find  us.  But  in  two  hours  you  two  impostors 
will  be  suffocated — perhaps  you  will  die  of  cyan- 
ogen, like  Morowitch,  whose  jewels  I  have  at 
last." 

He  went  to  the  door  into  the  hall  and  stood 
there  with  a  mocking  laugh.  I  moved  to  make 
a  rush  toward  them,  but  Kennedy  raised  his  hand. 

"You  will  suffocate,"  Poissan  hissed  again. 

Just  then  we  heard  the  elevator  door  clang,  and 
Lurried  steps  came  down  the  long  hall. 

Craig  whipped  out  his  automatic  and  began 
pumping  the  bullets  out  in  rapid  succession.  As 
the  smoke  cleared  I  expected  to  see  Poissan  and 
Frangois  lying  on  the  floor.  Instead,  Craig  had 
fired  at  the  lock  of  the  door.  He  had  shattered 
it  into  a  thousand  bits.  Andrews  and  his  men 
were  running  down  the  hall. 

"Curse  you!"  muttered  Poissan  as  he  banged 
the  now  useless  lock,  "who  let  those  fellows  inT 
Are  you  a  wizard?" 

Craig  smiled  coolly  as  the  ventilation  cleared 
the  room  of  the  deadly  cyanogen. 


THE   DIAMOND   MAKER  187 

"On  the  window-sill  outside  is  a  selenium  cell. 
Selenium  is  a  bad  conductor  of  electricity  in  the 
dark,  and  an  excellent  conductor  when  exposed 
to  light.  I  merely  moved  my  coat  and  hat,  and 
the  light  from  the  furnace  which  was  going  to 
suffocate  us  played  through  the  glass  on  the  cell, 
the  circuit  was  completed  without  your  suspect- 
ing that  I  could  communicate  with  friends  out- 
side, a  bell  was  rung  on  the  street,  and  here  they 
are.  Andrews,  there  is  the  murderer  of  Moro- 
witch,  and  there  in  his  hands  are  the  Moro- 
witch— " 

Poissan  had  moved  toward  the  furnace.  With 
a  quick  motion  he  seized  the  long  tongs.  There 
was  a  cloud  of  choking  vapour.  Kennedy  leaped 
to  the  switch  and  shut  off  the  current.  With  the 
tongs  he  lifted  out  a  shapeless  piece  of  valueless 
black  graphite. 

"All  that  is  left  of  the  priceless  Morowitch 
jewels,"  he  exclaimed  ruefully.  "But  we  have 
the  murderer." 

"And  to-morrow  a  certified  check  for  one  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  goes  to  Mrs.  Morowitch 
with  my  humblest  apologies  and  sympathy," 
added  Andrews.  "Professor  Kennedy,  you  have 
earned  your  retainer." 


vn 

THE    AZURE    RING 

FILES  of  newspapers  and  innumerable  clippings 
from  the  press  bureaus  littered  Kennedy's  desk 
in  rank  profusion.  Kennedy  himself  was  so 
deeply  absorbed  that  I  had  merely  said  good- 
evening  as  I  came  in  and  had  started  to  open 
my  mail.  With  an  impatient  sweep  of  his  hand, 
however,  he  brushed  the  whole  mass  of  news- 
papers into  the  waste-basket. 

"It  seems  to  me,  Walter,"  he  exclaimed  in 
disgust,  "that  this  mystery  is  considered  insol- 
uble for  the  very  reason  which  should  make  it 
easy  to  solve — the  extraordinary  character  of  its 
features." 

Inasmuch  as  he  had  opened  the  subject,  I  laid 
down  the  letter  I  was  reading.  "I'll  wager  I  can 
tell  you  just  why  you  made  that  remark,  Craig," 
I  ventured.  "You're  reading  up  on  that  Wain- 
wright-Templeton  affair. ' ' 

"You  are  on  the  road  to  becoming  a  detective 
yourself,  Walter,"  he  answered  with  a  touch  of 
sarcasm.  "Your  ability  to  add  two  units  to  two 
other  units  and  obtain  four  units  is  almost 
worthy  of  Inspector  O'Connor.  You  are  right, 

188 


THE   AZURE   RING  189 

and  within  a  quarter  of  an  hour  the  district  at- 
torney of  Westchester  County  will  be  here.  He 
telephoned  me  this  afternoon  and  sent  an  as- 
sistant with  this  mass  of  dope.  I  suppose  he'll 
want  it  back,"  he  added,  fishing  the  newspapers 
out  of  the  basket  again.  "But,  with  all  due  re- 
spect to  your  profession,  I'll  say  that  no  one 
would  ever  get  on  speaking  terms  with  the  solu- 
tion of  this  case  if  he  had  to  depend  solely  on 
the  newspaper  writers." 

"No?"  I  queried,  rather  nettled  at  his  tone. 

"No,'4  he  repeated  emphatically.  "Here  one 
of  the  most  popular  girls  in  the  fashionable 
suburb  of  Williston,  and  one  of  the  leading 
younger  members  of  the  bar  in  New  York,  en- 
gaged to  be  married,  are  found  dead  in  the  li- 
brary of  the  girl's  home  the  day  before  the  cere- 
mony. And  now,  a  week  later,  no  one  knows 
whether  it  was  an  accident  due  to  the  fumes  from 
the  antique  charcoal-brazier,  or  whether  it  was 
a  double  suicide,  or  suicide  and  murder,  or  a 
double  murder,  or — or — why,  the  experts  haven't 
even  been  able  to  agree  on  whether  they  have  dis- 
covered poison  or  not,"  he  continued,  growing 
as  excited  as  the  city  editor  did  over  my  first 
attempt  as  a  cub  reporter. 

"They  haven't  agreed  on  anything  except  that 
on  the  eve  of  what  was,  presumably,  to  have  been 
the  happiest  day  of  their  lives  two  of  the  best 
known  members  of  the  younger  set  are  found 


190  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

dead,  while  absolutely  no  one,  as  far  as  is  known, 
can  be  proved  to  have  been  near  them  within  the 
time  necessary  to  murder  them.  No  wonder  the 
coroner  says  it  is  simply  a  case  of  asphyxiation. 
No  wonder  the  district  attorney  is  at  his  wits' 
end.  You  fellows  have  hounded  them  with  your 
hypotheses  until  they  can't  see  the  facts  straight. 
You  suggest  one  solution  and  before — " 

The  door-bell  sounded  insistently,  and  without 
waiting  for  an  answer  a  tall,  spare,  loose- jointed 
individual  stalked  in  and  laid  a  green  bag  on  the 
table. 

"Good  evening,  Professor  Kennedy,"  he  be- 
gan brusquely.  "I  am  District  Attorney  Whit- 
ney, of  Westchester.  I  see  you  have  been  read- 
ing up  on  the  case.  Quite  right. " 

"Quite  wrong,"  answered  Craig.  "Let  me  in- 
troduce my  friend,  Mr.  Jameson,  of  the  Star. 
Sit  down.  Jameson  knows  what  I  think  of  the 
way  the  newspapers  have  handled  this  case.  1 
was  about  to  tell  him  as  you  came  in  that  I  in- 
tended to  disregard  everything  that  had  been 
printed,  to  start  out  with  you  as  if  it  were  a  fresh 
subject  and  get  the  facts  at  first  hand.  Let's 
get  right  down  to  business.  First  tell  us  just 
how  it  was  that  Miss  Wainwright  and  Mr.  Tem- 
pleton  were  discovered  and  by  whom." 

The  district  attorney  loosened  the  cords  of  the 
green  bag  and  drew  out  a  bundle  of  documents. 
"I'll  read  you  the  affidavit  of  the  maid  who  found 


THE   AZURE   RING  191 

them,"  he  said,  fingering  the  documents  nerv- 
ously. '  *  You  see,  John  Templeton  had  left  his  of- 
fice in  New  York  early  that  afternoon,  telling 
his  father  that  he  was  going  to  visit  Miss  Wain- 
wright.  He  caught  the  three-twenty  train, 
reached  Williston  all  right,  walked  to  the  Wain- 
wright  house,  and,  in  spite  of  the  bustle  of  prep- 
aration for  the  wedding,  the  next  day,  he  spent 
the  rest  of  the  afternoon  with  Miss  Wainwright. 
That's  where  the  mystery  begins.  They  had  no 
visitors.  At  least,  the  maid  who  answers  the  bell 
says  they  had  none.  She  was  busy  with  the  rest 
of  the  family,  and  I  believe  the  front  door  was 
not  locked — we  don't  lock  our  doors  in  Williston, 
except  at  night. ' ' 

He  had  found  the  paper  and  paused  to  impress 
these  facts  on  our  minds. 

"Mrs.  Wainwright  and  Miss  Marian  Wain- 
wright, the  sister,  were  busy  about  the  house. 
Mrs.  Wainwright  wished  to  consult  Laura  about 
something.  She  summoned  the  maid  and  asked 
if  Mr.  Templeton  and  Miss  Wainwright  were  in 
the  house.  The  maid  replied  that  she  would  see, 
and  this  is  her  affidavit.  Ahem!  I'll  skip  the 
legal  part: 

"  'I  knocked  at  the  library  door  twice,  but  ob- 
taining no  answer,  I  supposed  they  had  gone  out 
for  a  walk  or  perhaps  a  ride  across  country  as 
they  often  did.  I  opened  the  door  partly  and 
looked  in.  There  was  a  silence  in  the  room,  a 


192  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

strange,  queer  silence.  I  opened  the  door  fur- 
ther and,  looking  tward  the  davenport  in  the 
corner,  I  saw  Miss  Laura  and  Mr.  Templeton  in 
such  an  awkward  position.  They  looked  as  if 
they  had  fallen  asleep.  His  head  was  thrown 
back  against  the  cushions  of  the  davenport,  and 
on  his  face  was  a  most  awful  look.  It  was  dis- 
coloured. Her  head  had  fallen  forward  on  hia 
shoulder,  sideways,  and  on  her  face,  too,  was  the 
same  terrible  stare  and  the  same  discolouration. 
Their  right  hands  were  tightly  clasped. 

"  'I  called  to  them.  They  did  not  answer. 
Then  the  horrible  truth  flashed  on  me.  They 
were  dead.  I  felt  giddy  for  a  minute,  but  quickly 
recovered  myself,  and  with  a  cry  for  help  I  rushed 
to  Mrs.  Wainwright's  room,  shrieking  that  they 
were  dead.  Mrs.  Wainwright  fainted.  Miss 
Marian  called  the  doctor  on  the  telephone  and 
helped  us  restore  her  mother.  She  seemed  per- 
fectly cool  in  the  tragedy,  and  I  do  not  know 
what  we  servants  should  have  done  if  she  had 
not  been  there  to  direct  us.  The  house  was  fran- 
tic, and  Mr.  Wainwright  was  not  at  home. 

"  'I  did  not  detect  any  odour  when  I  opened 
the  library  door.  No  glasses  or  bottles  or  vials 
or  other  receptacles  which  could  have  held  poison 
were  discovered  or  removed  by  me,  or  to  the  best 
of  my  knowledge  and  belief  by  anyone  else.'  " 

"What  happened  next?"  asked  Craig  eagerly. 

"The  family  physician  arrived  and  sent  for 


THE   AZURE   KING  193 

the  coroner  immediately,  and  later  for  myself. 
You  see,  he  thought  at  once  of  murder.*' 

"But  the  coroner,  I  understand,  thinks  differ- 
ently,'* prompted  Kennedy. 

"Yes,  the  coroner  has  declared  the  case  to  be 
accidental.  He  says  that  the  weight  of  evidence 
points  positively  to  asphyxiation.  Still,  how  can 
it  be  asphyxiation?  They  could  have  escaped 
from  the  room  at  any  time;  the  door  was  not 
locked.  I  tell  you,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
tests  for  poison  in  their  mouths,  stomachs,  and 
blood  have  so  far  revealed  nothing,  I  still  believe 
that  John  Templeton  and  Laura  Wainwright  were 
murdered." 

Kennedy  looked  at  his  watch  thoughtfully. 
"You  have  told  me  just  enough  to  make  me  want 
to  see  the  coroner  himself,"  he  mused.  "If  we 
take  the  next  train  out  to  Williston  with  you,  will 
you  engage  to  get  us  a  half-hour  talk  with  him  on 
the  case,  Mr.  Whitney?" 

"Surely.  But  we'll  have  to  start  right  away. 
I've  finished  my  other  business  in  New  York.  In- 
spector O'Connor — ah,  I  see  you  know  him — has 
promised  to  secure  the  attendance  of  anyone 
whom  I  can  show  to  be  a  material  witness  in  the 
case.  Come  on,  gentlemen:  I'll  answer  your 
other  questions  on  the  train." 

As  we  settled  ourselves  in  the  smoker,  Whitney 
remarked  in  a  low  voice,  "You  know,  someone 
has  said  that  there  is  only  one  thing  more  diffi- 


194  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

cult  to  investigate  and  solve  than  a  crime  whose 
commission  is  surrounded  by  complicated  circum- 
stances and  that  is  a  crime  whose  perpetration 
is  wholly  devoid  of  circumstances. ' ' 

"Are  you  so  sure  that  this  crime  is  wholly  de- 
void of  circumstances?"  asked  Craig. 

"Professor,"  he  replied,  "I'm  not  sure  of  any- 
thing in  this  case.  If  I  were  I  should  not  re- 
quire your  assistance.  I  would  like  the  credit  of 
solving  it  myself,  but  it  is  beyond  me.  Just 
think  of  it:  so  far  we  haven't  a  clue,  at  least  none 
that  shows  the  slightest  promise,  although  we 
have  worked  night  and  day  for  a  week.  It's  all 
darkness.  The  facts  are  so  simple  that  they  give 
us  nothing  to  work  on.  It  is  like  a  blank  sheet 
of  paper." 

Kennedy  said  nothing,  and  the  district  attorney 
proceeded:  "I  don't  blame  Mr.  Nott,  the  coroner, 
for  thinking  it  an  accident.  But  to  my  mind, 
some  master  criminal  must  have  arranged  this 
very  baffling  simplicity  of  circumstances.  You 
recall  that  the  front  door  was  unlocked.  This 
person  must  have  entered  the  house  unobserved, 
not  a  difficult  thing  to  do,  for  the  Wainwright 
house  is  somewhat  isolated.  Perhaps  this  person 
brought  along  some  poison  in  the  form  of  a  bever- 
age, and  induced  the  two  victims  to  drink.  And 
then,  this  person  must  have  removed  the  evidences 
as  swiftly  as  they  were  brought  in  and  by  the 
same  door.  That,  I  think,  is  the  only  solution." 


THE   AZUEE   KING  195 

"That  is  not  the  only  solution.  It  is  one  solu- 
tion," interrupted  Kennedy  quietly. 

"Do  you  think  someone  in  the  house  did  it!"  I 
asked  quickly. 

"I  think,"  replied  Craig,  carefully  measuring 
his  words,  * '  that  if  poison  was  given  them  it  must 
have  been  by  someone  they  both  knew  pretty 
well." 

No  one  said  a  word,  until  at  last  I  broke  the 
silence.  "I  know  from  the  gossip  of  the  Star 
office  that  many  Williston  people  say  that  Marian 
was  very  jealous  of  her  sister  Laura  for  captur- 
ing the  catch  of  the  season.  Williston  people 
don't  hesitate  to  hint  at  it." 

Whitney  produced  another  document  from  that 
fertile  green  bag.  It  was  another  affidavit.  He 
handed  it  to  us.  It  was  a  statement  signed  by 
Mrs.  Wainwright,  and  read : 

"Before  God,  my  daughter  Marian  is  innocent. 
If  you  wish  to  find  out  all,  find  out  more  about 
the  past  history  of  Mr.  Templeton  before  he  be- 
came engaged  to  Laura.  She  would  never  in  the 
world  have  committed  suicide.  She  was  too 
bright  and  cheerful  for  that,  even  if  Mr.  Temple- 
ton  had  been  about  to  break  off  the  engagement. 
My  daughters  Laura  and  Marian  were  always 
treated  by  Mr.  Wainwright  and  myself  exactly 
alike.  Of  course  they  had  their  quarrels,  just  as 
all  sisters  do,  but  there  was  never,  to  my  certain 
knowledge,  a  serious  disagreement,  and  I  was  al- 


196  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

ways  close  enough  to  my  girls  to  know.  No, 
Laura  was  murdered  by  someone  outside." 

Kennedy  did  not  seem  to  attach  much  impor- 
tance to  this  statement.  "Let  us  see,"  he  began 
reflectively.  "First,  we  have  a  young  wo- 
man especially  attractive  and  charming  in  both 
person  and  temperament.  She  is  just  about  to 
be  married  and,  if  the  reports  are  to  be  believed, 
there  was  no  cloud  on  her  happiness.  Secondly, 
we  have  a  young  man  whom  everyone  agrees  to 
have  been  of  an  ardent,  energetic,  optimistic 
temperament.  He  had  everything  to  live  for, 
presumably.  So  far,  so  good.  Everyone  who  has 
investigated  this  case,  I  understand,  has  tried  to 
eliminate  the  double-suicide  and  the  suicide-and- 
murder  theories.  That  is  all  right,  providing 
the  facts  are  as  stated.  We  shall  see,  later,  when 
we  interview  the  coroner.  Now,  Mr.  Whitney, 
suppose  you  tell  us  briefly  what  you  have  learned 
about  the  past  history  of  the  two  unfortunate 
lovers." 

"Well,  the  Wainwrights  are  an  old  Westches- 
ter  family,  not  very  wealthy,  but  of  the  real  aris- 
tocracy of  the  county.  There  were  only  two  chil- 
dren, Laura  and  Marian.  The  Templetons  were 
much  the  same  sort  of  family.  The  children  all 
attended  a  private  school  at  White  Plains,  and 
there  also  they  met  Schuyler  Vanderdyke.  These 
four  constituted  a  sort  of  little  aristocracy  in  the 
school.  I  mention  this,  because  Vanderdyke 


THE  AZURE   RING-  197 

later  became  Laura's  first  husband.  This  mar- 
riage with  Templeton  was  a  second  venture. " 

"How  long  ago  was  she  divorced?"  asked  Craig 
attentively. 

"About  three  years  ago.  I'm  coming  to  that 
in  a  moment.  The  sisters  went  to  college  to- 
gether, Templeton  to  law  school,  and  Vanderdyke 
studied  civil  engineering.  Their  intimacy  was 
pretty  well  broken  up,  all  except  Laura's  and 
Vanderdyke 's.  Soon  after  he  graduated  he  was 
taken  into  the  construction  department  of  the 
Central  Railroad  by  his  uncle,  who  was  a  vice- 
president,  and  Laura  and  he  were  married.  As 
far  as  I  can  learn  he  had  been  a  fellow  of  con- 
vivial habits  at  college,  and  about  two  years  after 
their  marriage  his  wife  suddenly  became  aware 
of  what  had  long  been  well  known  in  Williston, 
that  Vanderdyke  was  paying  marked  attention  to 
a  woman  named  Miss  Laporte  in  New  York. 

"No  sooner  had  Laura  Vanderdyke  learned  of 
this  intimacy  of  her  husband,"  continued  Whit- 
ney, "than  she  quietly  hired  private  detectives  to 
shadow  him,  and  on  their  evidence  she  obtained  a 
divorce.  The  papers  were  sealed,  and  she  re- 
sumed her  maiden  name. 

"As  far  as  I  can  find  out,  Vanderdyke  then  'dis- 
appeared from  her  life.  He  resigned  his  position 
with  the  railroad  and  joined  a  party  of  engineers 
exploring  the  upper  Amazon.  Later  he  went  to 
Venezuela.  Miss  Laporte  also  went  to  South 


198  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

America  about  the  same  time,  and  was  for  a  time 
in  Venezuela,  and  later  in  Peru. 

"Vanderdyke  seems  to  have  dropped  all  his 
early  associations  completely,  though  at  present 
I  find  he  is  back  in  New  York  raising  capital  for 
a  company  to  exploit  a  new  asphalt  concession  in 
the  interior  of  Venezuela.  Miss  Laporte  has  also 
reappeared  in  New  York  as  Mrs.  Kalston,  with  a 
mining  claim  in  the  mountains  of  Peru." 

1 '  And  Templeton  ? ' '  asked  Craig.  '  *  Had  he  had 
any  previous  matrimonial  ventures?" 

"No,  none.  Of  course  he  had  had  love  affairs, 
mostly  with  the  country-club  set.  He  had  known 
Miss  Laporte  pretty  well,  too,  while  he  was  in  law 
school  in  New  York.  But  when  he  settled  down 
to  work  he  seems  to  have  forgotten  all  about  the 
girls  for  a  couple  of  years  or  so.  He  was  very 
anxious  to  get  ahead,  and  let  nothing  stand  in  his 
way.  He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  and  taken  in 
by  his  father  as  junior  member  of  the  firm  of  Tem- 
pleton, Mills  &  Templeton.  Not  long  ago  he  was 
appointed  a  special  master  to  take  testimony  in 
the  get-rich-quick-company  prosecutions,  and  I 
happen  to  know  that  he  was  making  good  in  the 
investigation." 

Kennedy  nodded.  "What  sort  of  fellow  per- 
sonally was  Templeton?"  he  asked. 

"Very  popular,"  replied  the  district  attorney, 
"both  at  the  country  club  and  in  his  profession 
in  New  York.  He  was  a  fellow  of  naturally  com- 


THE   AZURE   RING  199 

manding  temperament — the  Templetons  were  al- 
ways that  way.  I  doubt  if  many  young  men  even 
with  his  chances  could  have  gained  such  a  reputa- 
tion at  thirty-five  as  his.  Socially  he  was  very 
popular,  too  ,  a  great  catch  for  all  the  sly  mamas 
of  the  country  club  who  had  marriageable  daugh- 
ters. He  liked  automobiles  and  outdoor  sports, 
and  he  was  strong  in  politics,  too.  That  was  how 
he  got  ahead  so  fast. 

"Well,  to  cut  the  story  short,  Templeton  met 
the  Wainwright  girls  again  last  summer  at  a  re- 
sort on  Long  Island.  They  had  just  returned 
from  a  long  trip  abroad,  spending  most  of  the 
time  in  the  Far  East  with  their  father,  whose 
firm  has  business  interests  in  China.  The  girls 
were  very  attractive.  They  rode  and  played  ten- 
nis and  golf  better  than  most  of  the  men,  and  this 
fall  Templeton  became  a  frequent  visitor  at  the 
Wainwright  home  in  Williston. 

"People  who  know  them  best  tell  me  that  his 
first  attentions  were  paid  to  Marian,  a  very  dash- 
ing and  ambitious  young  woman.  Nearly  every 
day  Templeton 's  car  stopped  at  the  house  and  the 
girls  and  some  friend  of  Templeton 's  in  the  coun- 
try club  went  for  a  ride.  They  tell  me  that  at 
this  time  Marian  always  sat  with  Templeton  on 
the  front  seat.  But  after  a  few  weeks  the  gos- 
sips— nothing  of  that  sort  ever  escapes  Williston 
— said  that  the  occupant  of  the  front  seat  was 
Laura.  She  often  drove  the  car  herself  and  was 


&00  THE  SILENT  BULLET 

very  clever  at  it.  rAt  any  rate,  not  long  after  that 
the  engagement  was  announced." 

As  he  walked  up  from  the  pretty  little  Willis- 
ton  station  Kennedy  asked :  ' '  One  more  question, 
Mr.  Whitney.  How  did  Marian  take  the  engage- 
ment?" 

The  district  attorney  hesitated.  "I  will  be  per- 
fectly frank,  Mr.  Kennedy,"  he  answered.  "The 
country-club  people  tell  me  that  the  girls  were 
very  cool  toward  each  other.  That  was  why  I  got 
that  statement  from  Mrs.  Wainwright.  I  wish  to 
be  perfectly  fair  to  everyone  concerned  in  this 
case." 

We  found  the  coroner  quite  willing  to  talk,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  hour  was  late.  "My 
friend,  Mr.  Whitney,  here,  still  holds  the  poison 
theory,"  began  the  coroner,  "in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  everything  points  absolutely  toward  asphyx- 
iation. If  I  had  been  able  to  discover  the  slight- 
est trace  of  illuminating-gas  in  the  room  I  should 
have  pronounced  it  asphyxia  at  once.  All  the 
symptoms  accorded  with  it.  But  the  asphyxia 
was  not  caused  by  escaping  illuminating-gas. 

"There  was  an  antique  charcoal-brazier  in  the 
room,  and  I  have  ascertained  that  it  was  lighted. 
[Now,  anything  like  a  brazier  will,  unless  there  is 
proper  ventilation,  give  rise  to  carbonic  oxide  or 
carbon  monoxide  gas,  which  is  always  present  in 
the  products  of  combustion,  often  to  the  extent  of 
from  five  to  ten  per  cent.  A  very  slight  quantity 


THE  AZURE  RING  201 

of  this  gas,  insufficient  even  to  cause  an  odour  in 
a  room,  will  give  a  severe  headache,  and  a  case  is 
recorded  where  a  whole  family  in  Glasgow  was 
poisoned  without  knowing  it  by  the  escape  of  this 
gas.  A  little  over  one  per  cent,  of  it  in  the  at- 
mosphere is  fatal,  if  breathed  for  any  length  of 
time.  You  know,  it  is  a  product  of  combustion, 
and  is  very  deadly — it  is  the  much-dreaded  white 
damp  or  afterdamp  of  a  mine  explosion. 

"I'm  going  to  tell  you  a  secret  which  I  have 
not  given  out  to  the  press  yet.  I  tried  an  experi- 
ment in  a  closed  room  to-day,  lighting  the  brazier. 
Some  distance  from  it  I  placed  a  cat  confined  in 
a  cage  so  it  could  not  escape.  In  an  hour  and  a 
half  the  cat  was  asphyxiated." 

The  coroner  concluded  with  an  air  of  triumph 
that  quite  squelched  the  district  attorney. 

Kennedy  was  all  attention.  "Have  you  pre- 
served samples  of  the  blood  of  Mr.  Templeton 
and  Miss  Wainwright?"  he  asked. 

"Certainly.    I  have  them  in  my  office." 

The  coroner,  who  was  also  a  local  physician, 
led  us  back  into  his  private  office. 

"And  the  cat?"  added  Craig. 

Doctor  Nott  produced  it  in  a  covered  basket. 

Quickly  Kennedy  drew  off  a  little  of  the  blood 
of  the  cat  and  held  it  up  to  the  light  along  with 
the  human  samples.  The  difference  was  appar- 
ent. 

"You  see,"  he  explained,  "carbon  monoxide 


202  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

combines  firmly  with  the  blood,  destroying  the 
red  colouring  matter  of  the  red  corpuscles.  No, 
Doctor,  I'm  afraid  it  wasn't  carbonic  oxide  that 
killed  the  lovers,  although  it  certainly  killed  the 
cat." 

Doctor  Nott  was  crestfallen,  but  still  uncon- 
vinced. "If  my  whole  medical  reputation  were 
at  stake,"  he  repeated,  "I  should  still  be  com- 
pelled to  swear  to  asphyxia.  I've  seen  it  too 
often,  to  make  a  mistake.  Carbonic  oxide  or  not, 
Templeton  and  Miss  Wainwright  were  asphyxi- 
ated." 

It  was  now  Whitney's  chance  to  air  his  theory. 
"I  have  always  inclined  toward  the  cyanide-of- 
potassium  theory,  either  that  it  was  administered 
in  a  drink  or  perhaps  injected  by  a  needle,"  he 
said.  "One  of  the  chemists  has  reported  that 
there  was  a  possibility  of  slight  traces  of  cyanide 
in  the  mouths." 

"If  it  had  been  cyanide,"  replied  Craig,  look- 
ing reflectively  at  the  two  jars  before  him  on  the 
table,  "these  blood  specimens  would  be  blue  in 
colour  and  clotted.  But  they  are  not.  Then,  too, 
there  is  a  substance  in  the  saliva  which  is  used  in 
the  process  of  digestion.  It  gives  a  reaction 
which  might  very  easily  be  mistaken  for  a  slight 
trace  of  cyanide.  I  think  that  explains  what  the 
chemist  discovered;  no  more,  no  less.  The  cya- 
nide theory  does  not  fit." 

"One  chemist  hinted  at  nux  vomica,"  volun- 


THE   AZURE   RING  203 

teered  the  coroner.  "He  said  it  wasn't  nux  vom- 
ica,  but  that  the  blood  test  showed  something  very 
much  like  it.  Oh,  we've  looked  for  morphine, 
chloroform,  ether,  all  the  ordinary  poisons,  be- 
sides some  of  the  little  known  alkaloids.  Believe 
me,  Professor  Kennedy,  it  was  asphyxia." 

I  could  tell  by  the  look  that  crossed  Kennedy's 
face  that  at  last  a  ray  of  light  had  pierced  the 
darkness.  "Have  you  any  spirits  of  turpentine 
in  the  office?"  he  asked. 

The  coroner  shook  his  head  and  took  a  step 
toward  the  telephone  as  if  to  call  the  drug-store 
in  town. 

"Or  ether?"  interrupted  Craig.  "Ether  will 
do." 

"Oh,  yes,  plenty  of  ether." 

Craig  poured  a  little  of  one  of  the  blood  sam- 
ples from  the  jar  into  a  tube  and  added  a  few 
drops  of  ether.  A  cloudy  dark  precipitate 
formed.  He  smiled  quietly  and  said,  half  to  him- 
self, "I  thought  so." 

"What  is  it?"  asked  the  coroner  eagerly. 
"Nux  vomica?" 

Craig  shook  his  head  as  he  stared  at  the  black 
precipitate.  "You  were  perfectly  right  about  the 
asphyxiation,  Doctor,"  he  remarked  slowly,  "but 
wrong  as  to  the  cause.  It  wasn't  carbon  monox- 
ide or  illuminating-gas.  And  you,  Mr.  Whitney, 
were  right  about  the  poison,  too.  Only  it  is  a 
poison  neither  of  you  ever  heard  of." 


204  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"What  is  it?"  we  asked  simultaneously. 

"Let  me  take  these  samples  and  make  some  fur- 
ther tests.  I  am  sure  of  it,  but  it  is  new  to  me. 
Wait  till  to-morrow  night,  when  my  chain  of  evi- 
dence is  completed.  Then  you  are  all  cordially 
invited  to  attend  at  my  laboratory  at  the  univer- 
sity. I'll  ask  you,  Mr.  Whitney,  to  come  armed 
with  a  warrant  for  John  or  Jane  Doe.  Please  see 
that  the  Wainwrights,  particularly  Marian,  are 
present.  You  can  tell  Inspector  O'Connor  that 
Mr.  Vanderdyke  and  Mrs.  Ralston  are  required 
as  material  witnesses — anything  so  long  as  you 
are  sure  that  these  five  persons  are  present. 
Good  night,  gentlemen." 

We  rode  back  to  the  city  in  silence,  but  as  we 
neared  the  station,  Kennedy  remarked:  "You  see, 
Walter,  these  people  are  like  the  newspapers. 
They  are  floundering  around  in  a  sea  of  unrelated 
facts.  There  is  more  than  they  think  back  of  this 
crime.  I've  been  revolving  in  my  mind  how  it 
will  be  possible  to  get  some  inkling  about  this  con- 
cession of  Vanderdyke 's,  the  mining  claim  of  Mrs. 
Ralston,  and  the  exact  itinerary  of  the  Wain- 
wright  trip  in  the  Far  East.  Do  you  think  you 
can  get  that  information  for  me?  I  think  it  will 
take  me  all  day  to-morrow  to  isolate  this  poison 
and  get  things  in  convincing  shape  on  that  score. 
Meanwhile  if  you  can  see  Vanderdyke  and  Mrs. 
Ralston  you  can  help  me  a  great  deal.  I  am  sure 
you  will  find  them  very  interesting  people." 


THE   AZURE   RING  205 

"I  have  been  told  that  she  is  quite  a  female 
high  financier,"  I  replied,  tacitly  accepting  Craig's 
commission.  "Her  story  is  that  her  claim  is  sit- 
uated near  the  mine  of  a  group  of  powerful 
American  capitalists,  who  are  opposed  to  having 
any  competition,  and  on  the  strength  of  that  story 
she  has  been  raking  in  the  money  right  and  left. 
I  don't  know  Vanderdyke,  never  heard  of  him  be- 
fore, but  no  doubt  he  has  some  equally  interest- 
ing game." 

"Don't  let  them  think  you  connect  them  with  the 
case,  however,"  cautioned  Craig. 

Early  the  next  morning  I  started  out  on  my 
quest  for  facts,  though  not  so  early  but  that  Ken- 
nedy had  preceded  me  to  his  work  in  his  labora- 
tory. It  was  not  very  difficult  to  get  Mrs.  Ral- 
ston to  talk  about  her  troubles  with  the  govern- 
ment. In  fact,  I  did  not  even  have  to  broach  the 
subject  of  the  death  of  Templeton.  She  volun- 
teered the  information  that  in  his  handling  of  her 
case  he  had  been  very  unjust  to  her,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  she  had  known  him  well  a  long  time 
ago.  She  even  hinted  that  she  believed  he  rep- 
resented the  combination  of  capitalists  who  were 
using  the  government  to  aid  their  own  monopoly 
and  prevent  the  development  of  her  mine. 
Whether  it  was  an  obsession  of  her  mind,  or 
merely  part  of  her  clever  scheme,  I  could  not  make 
out.  I  noted,  however,  that  when  she  spoke  of 
Templeton  it  was  in  a  studied,  impersonal  way, 


206  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

and  that  she  was  at  pains  to  lay  the  blame  for 
the  governmental  interference  rather  on  the  rival 
mine-owners. 

It  quite  surprised  me  when  I  found  from  the 
directory  that  Vanderdyke's  office  was  on  the  floor 
below  in  the  same  building.  Like  Mrs.  Ralston 's, 
it  was  open,  but  not  doing  business,  pending  the 
investigation  by  the  Post-Office  Department. 

Vanderdyke  was  a  type  of  which  I  had  seen 
many  before.  Well  dressed  to  the  extreme,  he 
displayed  all  those  evidences  of  prosperity  which 
are  the  stock  in  trade  of  the  man  with  securities 
to  sell.  He  grasped  my  hand  when  I  told  him  I 
'was  going  to  present  the  other  side  of  the  post- 
office  cases  and  held  it  between  both  of  his  as  if 
lie  had  known  me  all  his  life.  Only  the  fact  that 
he  had  never  seen  me  before  prevented  his  calling 
me  by  my  first  name.  I  took  mental  note  of  his 
stock  of  jewellery,  the  pin  in  his  tie  that  might  al- 
most have  been  the  Hope  diamond,  the  heavy 
watchchain  across  his  chest,  and  a  very  brilliant 
seal  ring  of  lapis  lazuli  on  the  hand  that  grasped 
mine.  He  saw  me  looking  at  it  and  smiled. 

"My  dear  fellow,  we  have  deposits  of  that 
stuff  that  would  make  a  fortune  if  we  could  get 
the  machinery  to  get  at  it.  Why,  sir,  there  is 
lapis  lazuli  enough  on  our  claim  to  make  enough 
ultramarine  paint  to  supply  all  the  artists  to  the 
end  of  the  world.  Actually  we  could  afford  to 
crush  it  up  and  sell  it  as  paint.  And  that  is 


THE   AZURE   RING  207 

merely  incidental  to  the  other  things  on  the  con- 
cession. The  asphalt's  the  thing.  That's  where 
the  big  money  is.  When  we  get  started,  sir,  the 
old  asphalt  trust  will  simply  melt  away,  melt 
away." 

He  blew  a  cloud  of  tobacco  smoke  and  let  it 
dissolve  significantly  in  the  air. 

When  it  came  to  talking  about  the  suits,  how- 
ever, Vanderdyke  was  not  so  communicative  as 
Mrs.  Ralston,  but  he  was  also  not  so  bitter  against 
either  the  post-office  or  Templeton. 

"Poor  Templeton,"  he  said.  "I  used  to  know 
Mm  years  ago  when  we  were  boys.  Went  to 
school  with  him  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  you 
know,  but  until  I  ran  across  him,  or  rather  he 
ran  across  me,  in  this  investigation  I  hadn't  heard 
much  about  him.  Pretty  clever  fellow  he  was, 
too.  The  state  will  miss  him,  but  my  lawyer  tells 
me  that  we  should  have  won  the  suit  anyhow, 
even  if  that  unfortunate  tragedy  hadn't  occurred. 
Most  unaccountable,  wasn't  it?  I've  read  about 
it  in  the  papers  for  old  time's  sake,  and  can  make 
nothing  out  of  it." 

I  said  nothing,  but  wondered  how  he  could  pass 
so  light-heartedly  over  the  death  of  the  woman 
who  had  once  been  his  wife.  However,  I  said 
nothing.  The  result  was  he  launched  forth  again 
on  the  riches  of  his  Venezuelan  concession  and 
loaded  me  down  with  "literature,"  which  I 
crammed  into  my  pocket  for  future  reference. 


208  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

My  next  step  was  to  drop  into  the  office  of  a 
Spanish- American  paper  whose  editor  was  espe- 
cially well  informed  on  South  American  affairs. 

"Do  I  know  Mrs.  Kalston  ?"  he  repeated, 
thoughtfully  lighting  one  of  those  black  cigar- 
ettes that  look  so  vicious  and  are  so  mild.  "I 
should  say  so.  I'll  tell  you  a  little  story  about 
her.  Three  or  four  years  ago  she  turned  up  in 
Caracas.  I  don't  know  who  Mr.  Ealston  was — 
perhaps  there  never  was  any  Mr.  Kalston. 
Anyhow,  she  got  in  with  the  official  circle  of  the 
Castro  government  and  was  very  successful  as  an 
adventuress.  She  has  considerable  business  abil- 
ity and  represented  a  certain  group  of  Ameri- 
cans. But,  if  you  recall,  when  Castro  was  elimi- 
nated pretty  nearly  everyone  who  had  stood  high 
with  him  went,  too.  It  seems  that  a  number  of 
the  old  concessionaires  played  the  game  on  both 
sides.  This  particular  group  had  a  man  named 
Vanderdyke  on  the  anti-Castro  side.  So,  when 
Mrs.  Kalston  went,  she  just  quietly  sailed  by  way 
of  Panama  to  the  other  side  of  the  continent,  to 
Peru — they  paid  her  well — and  Vanderdyke  took 
the  title  role. 

"Oh,  yes,  she  and  Vanderdyke  were  very  good 
friends,  very,  indeed.  I  think  they  must  have 
known  each  other  here  in  the  States.  Still  they 
played  their  parts  well  at  the  time.  Since  things 
(liave  settled  down  in  Venezuela,  the  concession- 
aires have  found  no  further  use  for  Vanderdyke 


THE   AZURE   RING  209 

either,  and  here  they  are,  Vanderdyke  and  Mrs. 
Ralston,  both  in  New  York  now,  with  two  of  the 
most  outrageous  schemes  of  financing  ever  seen 
on  Broad  Street.  They  have  offices  in  the  same 
building,  they  are  together  a  great  deal,  and  now 
I  hear  that  the  state  attorney-general  is  after 
both  of  them." 

With  this  information  and  a  very  meagre  re- 
port of  the  Wainwright  trip  to  the  Far  East, 
which  had  taken  in  some  out-of-the-way  places 
apparently,  I  hastened  back  to  Kennedy.  He 
was  surrounded  by  bottles,  tubes,  jars,  retorts, 
Bunsen  burners,  everything  in  the  science  and 
art  of  chemistry,  I  thought. 

I  didn't  like  the  way  he  looked.  His  hand  was 
unsteady,  and  his  eyes  looked  badly,  but  he 
seemed  quite  put  out  when  I  suggested  that  he 
was  working  too  hard  over  the  case.  I  was 
worried  about  him,  but  rather  than  say  anything 
to  offend  him  I  left  him  for  the  rest  of  the  after- 
noon, only  dropping  in  before  dinner  to  make 
sure  that  he  would  not  forget  to  eat  something. 
He  was  then  completing  his  preparations  for  the 
evening.  They  were  of  the  simplest  kind,  appar- 
ently. In  fact,  all  I  could  see  was  an  apparatus 
which  consisted  of  a  rubber  funnel,  inverted  and 
attached  to  a  rubber  tube  which  led  in  turn  into 
a  jar  about  a  quarter  full  of  water.  Through 
the  stopper  of  the  jar  another  tube  led  to  a  tank 
of  oxygen. 


210  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

There  were  several  jars  of  various  liquids  on 
the  table  and  a  number  of  chemicals.  Among 
other  things  was  a  sort  of  gourd,  encrusted  with 
a  black  substance,  and  in  a  corner  was  a  box 
from  which  sounds  issued  as  if  it  contained  some- 
thing alive. 

I  did  not  trouble  Kennedy  with  questions,  for 
I  was  only  too  glad  when  he  consented  to  take  a 
brisk  walk  and  join  me  in  a  thick  porterhouse. 

It  was  a  large  party  that  gathered  in  Kennedy's 
laboratory  that  night,  one  of  the  largest  he  had 
ever  had.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wainwright  and  Miss 
Marian  came,  the  ladies  heavily  veiled.  Doctor 
Nott  and  Mr.  Whitney  were  among  the  first  to 
arrive.  Later  came  Mr.  Vanderdyke  and  last  of 
all  Mrs.  Ralston  with  Inspector  O'Connor.  Al- 
together it  was  an  unwilling  party. 

"I  shall  begin,"  said  Kennedy,  "by  going  over, 
briefly,  the  facts  in  this  case." 

Tersely  he  summarised  it,  to  my  surprise  lay- 
ing great  stress  on  the  proof  that  the  couple  had 
been  asphyxiated. 

"But  it  was  no  ordinary  asphyxiation,"  he  con- 
tinued. "We  have  to  deal  in  this  case  with  a 
poison  which  is  apparently  among  the  most  subtle 
known.  A  particle  of  matter  so  minute  as  to  be 
hardly  distinguishable  by  the  naked  eye,  on  the 
point  of  a  needle  or  a  lancet,  a  prick  of  the  skin 
scarcely  felt  under  any  circumstances  and  which 
would  pass  quite  unheeded  if  the  attention  were 


THE   AZURE  RING  211 

otherwise  engaged,  and  not  all  the  power  in  the 
world — unless  one  was  fully  prepared — could 
save  the  life  of  the  person  in  whose  skin  the  punc- 
ture had  been  made." 

Craig  paused  a  moment,  but  no  one  showed  any 
evidence  of  being  more  than  ordinarily  impressed. 

"This  poison,  I  find,  acts  on  the  so-called  end- 
plates  of  the  muscles  and  nerves.  It  produces 
complete  paralysis,  but  not  loss  of  consciousness, 
sensation,  circulation,  or  respiration  until  the  end 
approaches.  It  seems  to  be  one  of  the  most 
powerful  sedatives  I  have  ever  heard  of.  When 
introduced  in  even  a  minute  quantity  it  produces 
death  finally  by  asphyxiation — by  paralysing  the 
muscles  of  respiration.  This  asphyxia  is  what  so 
puzzled  the  coroner. 

"I  will  now  inject  a  little  of  the  blood  serum 
of  the  victims  into  a  white  mouse. '  ' 

He  took  a  mouse  from  the  box  I  had  seen,  and 
with  a  needle  injected  the  serum.  The  mouse  did 
not  even  wince,  so  lightly  did  he  touch  it,  but  as 
we  watched,  its  life  seemed  gently  to  ebb  away, 
without  pain  and  without  struggle.  Its  breath 
simply  seemed  to  stop. 

Next  he  took  the  gourd  I  had  seen  on  the  table 
and  with  a  knife  scraped  off  just  the  minutest 
particle  of  the  black  licorice-like  stuff  that  en- 
crusted it.  He  dissolved  the  particle  in  some  al- 
cohol and  with  a  sterilised  needle  repeated  his  ex- 
periment on  a  second  mouse.  The  effect  was  pre- 


212  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

cisely  similar  to  that  produced  by  the  blood  on  the 
first. 

It  did  not  seem  to  me  that  anyone  showed  any 
emotion  except  possibly  the  slight  exclamation 
that  escaped  Miss  Marian  Wainwright.  I  fell  to 
wondering  whether  it  was  prompted  by  a  soft 
heart  or  a  guilty  conscience. 

We  were  all  intent  on  what  Craig  was  doing, 
especially  Doctor  Nott,  who  now  broke  in  with 
a  question. 

11  Professor  Kennedy,  may  I  ask  a  question? 
Admitting  that  the  first  mouse  died  in  an  appar- 
ently similar  manner  to  the  second,  what  proof 
have  you  that  the  poison  is  the  same  in  both 
cases?  And  if  it  is  the  same  can  you  show  that 
it  affects  human  beings  in  the  same  way,  and  that 
enough  of  it  has  been  discovered  in  the  blood  of 
the  victims  to  have  caused  their  death?  In  other 
words,  I  want  the  last  doubt  set  aside.  How  do 
you  know  absolutely  that  this  poison  which  you 
discovered  in  my  office  last  night  in  that  black 
precipitate  when  you  added  the  ether — how  do 
you  know  that  it  asphyxiated  the  victims  ? ' ' 

If  ever  Craig  startled  me  it  was  by  his  quiet 
reply.  "I've  isolated  it  in  their  blood,  extracted 
it,  sterilised  it,  and  I've  tried  it  on  myself." 

In  breathless  amazement,  with  eyes  riveted  on 
Craig,  we  listened. 

"Altogether  I  was  able  to  recover  from  the 
blood  samples  of  both  of  the  victims  of  this  crime 


THE  AZURE   RING  213 

six  centigrams  of  the  poison,"  he  pursued. 
"Starting  with  two  centigrams  of  it  as  a  moder- 
ate dose,  I  injected  it  into  my  right  arm  subcu- 
taneously.  Then  I  slowly  worked  my  way  up  to 
three  and  then  four  centigrams.  They  did  not 
produce  any  very  appreciable  results  other  than 
to  cause  some  dizziness,  slight  vertigo,  a  consid- 
erable degree  of  lassitude,  and  an  extremely  pain- 
ful headache  of  rather  unusual  duration.  But 
five  centigrams  considerably  improved  on  this. 
It  caused  a  degree  of  vertigo  and  lassitude  that 
was  most  distressing,  and  six  centigrams,  the 
whole  amount  which  I  had  recovered  from  the 
samples  of  blood,  gave  me  the  fright  of  my  life 
right  here  in  this  laboratory  this  afternoon. 

"Perhaps  I  was  not  wise  in  giving  myself  so 
large  an  injection  on  a  day  when  I  was  overheated 
and  below  par  otherwise  Because  of  the  strain  I 
have  been  under  in  handling  this  case.  However 
that  may  be,  the  added  centigram  produced  so 
much  more  on  top  of  the  five  centigrams  previ- 
ously taken  that  for  a  time  I  had  reason  to  fear 
that  that  additional  centigram  was  just  the 
amount  needed  to  bring  my  experiments  to  a  per- 
manent close. 

"Within  three  minutes  of  the  time  of  injection 
the  dizziness  and  vertigo  had  become  so  great  as 
to  make  walking  seem  impossible.  In  another 
minute  the  lassitude  rapidly  crept  over  me,  and 
the  serious  disturbance  of  my  breathing  made  it 


214  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

apparent  to  me  that  walking,  waving  my  arms, 
anything,  was  imperative.  My  lungs  felt  glued 
up,  and  the  muscles  of  my  chest  refused  to  work. 
Everything  swam  before  my  eyes,  and  I  was  soon 
reduced  to  walking  up  and  down  the  laboratory 
with  halting  steps,  only  preventing  falling  on  the 
floor  by  holding  fast  to  the  edge  of  this  table.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  I  spent  hours  gasping  for 
breath.  It  reminded  me  of  what  I  once  experi- 
enced in  the  Cave  of  the  Winds  of  Niagara, 
where  water  is  more  abundant  in  the  atmosphere 
than  air.  My  watch  afterward  indicated  only 
about  twenty  minutes  of  extreme  distress,  but  that 
twenty  minutes  is  one  never  to  be  forgotten,  and 
I  advise  you  all,  if  you  ever  are  so  foolish  as  to 
try  the  experiment,  to  remain  below  the  five-centi- 
gram limit. 

"How  much  was  administered  to  the  victims, 
Doctor  Nott,  I  cannot  say,  but  it  must  have  been 
a  good  deal  more  than  I  took.  Six  centigrams, 
which  I  recovered  from  these  small  samples,  are 
only  nine-tenths  of  a  grain.  Yet  you  see  what  ef- 
fect it  had.  I  trust  that  answers  your  question?" 

Doctor  Nott  was  too  overwhelmed  to  reply. 

"And  what  is  this  deadly  poison?"  continued 
Craig,  anticipating  our  thoughts.  "I  have  been 
fortunate  enough  to  obtain  a  sample  of  it  from 
the  Museum  of  Natural  History.  It  comes  in  a 
little  gourd,  or  often  a  calabash.  This  is  in  a 
gourd.  It  is  blackish  brittle  stuff  encrusting  the 


THE   AZURE   RING  215 

sides  of  the  gourd  just  as  if  it  was  poured  in  in 
the  liquid  state  and  left  to  dry.  Indeed,  that  is 
just  what  has  been  done  by  those  who  manufac- 
ture this  stuff  after  a  lengthy  and  somewhat 
secret  process." 

He  placed  the  gourd  on  the  edge  of  the  table 
where  we  could  all  see  it.  I  was  almost  afraid 
even  to  look  at  it. 

"The  famous  traveller,  Sir  Robert  Schom- 
burgk,  first  brought  it  into  Europe,  and  Darwin 
has  described  it.  It  is  now  an  article  of  com- 
merce and  is  to  be  found  in  the  United  States 
Pharmacopoeia  as  a  medicine,  though  of  course  it 
is  used  in  only  very  minute  quantities,  as  a  heart 
stimulant. ' ' 

Craig  opened  a  book  to  a  place  he  had  marked. 

"At  least  one  person  in  this  room  will  appre- 
ciate the  local  colour  of  a  little  incident  I  am  going 
to  read — to  illustrate  what  death  from  this  poison 
is  like.  Two  natives  of  the  part  of  the  world 
whence  it  comes  were  one  day  hunting.  They 
were  armed  with  blow-pipes  and  quivers  full  of 
poisoned  darts  made  of  thin  charred  pieces  of 
bamboo  tipped  with  this  stuff.  One  of  them 
aimed  a  dart.  It  missed  the  object  overhead, 
glanced  off  the  tree,  and  fell  down  on  the  hunter 
himself.  This  is  how  the  other  native  reported 
the  result: 

"  'Quacca  takes  the  dart  out  of  his  shoulder. 
Never  a  word.  Puts  it  in  his  quiver  and  throws 


216  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

it  in  the  stream.  Gives  me  his  blow-pipe  for  his 
little  son.  Says  to  me  good-bye  for  his  wife  and 
the  village.  Then  he  lies  down.  His  tongue 
talks  no  longer.  No  sight  in  his  eyes.  He  folds 
his  arms.  He  rolls  over  slowly.  His  mouth 
moves  without  sound.  I  feel  his  heart.  It  goes 
fast  and  then  slow.  It  stops.  Quacca  has  shot 
his  last  woorali  dart.'  " 

We  looked  at  each  other,  and  the  horror  of  the 
thing  sank  deep  into  our  minds.  Woorali.  What 
was  it?  There  were  many  travellers  in  the  room 
who  had  been  in  the  Orient,  home  of  poisons,  and 
in  South  America.  Which  one  had  run  across 
the  poison  I 

"Woorali,  or  curare,"  said  Craig  slowly,  "is 
the  well-known  poison  with  which  the  South 
American  Indians  of  the  upper  Orinoco  tip  their 
arrows.  Its  principal  ingredient  is  derived  from 
the  Strychnos  toxifera  tree,  which  yields  also  the 
drug  nux  vomica." 

A  great  light  dawned  on  me.  I  turned  quickly 
to  where  Vanderdyke  was  sitting  next  to  Mrs. 
Ralston,  and  a  little  behind  her.  His  stony  stare 
and  laboured  breathing  told  me  that  he  had  read 
the  purport  of  Kennedy's  actions. 

"For  God's  sake,  Craig,"  I  gasped.  "An 
emetic,  quick — Vanderdyke. ' ' 

A  trace  of  a  smile  flitted  over  Vanderdyke 's 
features,  as  much  as  to  say  that  he  was  beyond 
our  interference. 


THE  AZURE   RING  217 

"Vanderdyke,"  said  Craig,  with  what  seemed 
to  me  a  brutal  calmness,  "then  it  was  you  who 
were  the  visitor  who  last  saw  Laura  Wainwright 
and  John  Templeton  alive.  Whether  you  shot  a 
dart  at  them  I  do  not  know.  But  you  are  the 
murderer." 

Vanderdyke  raised  his  hand  as  if  to  assent. 
It  fell  back  limp,  and  I  noted  the  ring  of  the 
bluest  lapis  lazuli. 

Mrs.  Ralston  threw  herself  toward  him.  "Will 
you  not  do  something?  Is  there  no  antidote? 
Don't  let  him  die!"  she  cried. 

"You  are  the  murderer,"  repeated  Kennedy, 
as  if  demanding  a  final  answer. 

Again  the  hand  moved  in  confession,  and  he 
feebly  moved  the  finger  on  which  shone  the  ring. 

Our  attention  was  centred  on  Vanderdyke. 
Mrs.  Ralston,  unobserved,  went  to  the  table  and 
picked  up  the  gourd.  Before  O'Connor  could 
stop  her  she  had  rubbed  her  tongue  on  the  black 
substance  inside.  It  was  only  a  little  bit,  for 
O'Connor  quickly  dashed  it  from  her  lips  and 
threw  the  gourd  through  the  window,  smashing 
the  glass. 

"Kennedy,"  he  shouted  frantically,  "Mrs. 
Ralston  has  swallowed  some  of  it." 

Kennedy  seemed  so  intent  on  Vanderdyke  that 
I  had  to  repeat  the  remark. 

Without  looking  up  he  said:  "Oh,  one  can 
swallow  it — it's  strange,  but  it  is  comparatively 


218  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

inert  if  swallowed  even  in  a  pretty  good-sized 
quantity.  I  doubt  if  Mrs.  Ealston  ever  heard  of 
it  before  except  by  hearsay.  If  she  had,  she'd 
have  scratched  herself  with  it  instead  of  swallow- 
ing it." 

If  Craig  had  been  indifferent  to  the  emergency 
of  Vanderdyke  before,  he  was  all  action  now  that 
the  confession  had  been  made.  In  an  instant 
Vanderdyke  was  stretched  on  the  floor  and  Craig 
had  taken  out  the  apparatus  I  had  seen  during 
the  afternoon. 

"I  am  prepared  for  this,"  he  exclaimed  quickly. 
"Here  is  the  apparatus  for  artificial  respiration. 
Nott,  hold  that  rubber  funnel  over  his  nose,  and 
start  the  oxygen  from  the  tank.  Pull  his  tongue 
forward  so  it  won't  fall  down  his  throat  and  choke 
him.  I'll  work  his  arms.  Walter,  make  a  tourni- 
quet of  your  handkerchief  and  put  it  tightly  on 
the  muscles  of  his  left  arm.  That  may  keep 
some  of  the  poison  in  his  arm  from  spreading 
into  the  rest  of  his  body.  This  is  the  only  anti- 
dote known — artificial  respiration." 

Kennedy  was  working  feverishly,  going 
through  the  motions  of  first  aid  to  a  drowned 
man.  Mrs.  Ralston  was  on  her  knees  beside  Van- 
derdyke, kissing  his  hands  and  forehead  whenever 
Kennedy  stopped  for  a  minute,  and  crying  softly. 

"Schuyler,  poor  boy,  I  wonder  how  you  could 
have  done  it.  I  was  with  him  that  day.  We 
rode  up  in  his  car,  and  as  we  passed  through  Wil- 


THE   AZURE   RING  219 

listen  he  said  he  would  stop  a  minute  and  wish 
Templeton  luck.  I  didn't  think  it  strange,  for  he 
said  he  had  nothing  any  longer  against  Laura 
Wainwright,  and  Templeton  only  did  his  duty  as 
a  lawyer  against  us.  I  forgave  John  for  prose- 
cuting us,  but  Schuyler  didn't,  after  all.  Oh,  my 
poor  boy,  why  did  you  do  it?  We  could  have 
gone  somewhere  else  and  started  all  over  again 
— it  wouldn't  have  been  the  first  time." 

At  last  came  the  flutter  of  an  eyelid  and  a  vol- 
untary breath  or  two.  Vanderdyke  seemed  to 
realise  where  he  was.  With  a  last  supreme  effort 
he  raised  his  hand  and  drew  it  slowly  across  his 
face.  Then  he  fell  back,  exhausted  by  the  effort. 

But  he  had  at  last  put  himself  beyond  the  reach 
of  the  law.  There  was  no  tourniquet  that  would 
confine  the  poison  now  in  the  scratch  across  his 
face.  Back  of  those  lack-lustre  eyes  he  heard  and 
knew,  but  could  not  move  or  speak.  His  voice 
was  gone,  his  limbs,  his  face,  his  chest,  and,  last, 
his  eyes.  I  wondered  if  it  were  possible  to  con- 
ceive a  more  dreadful  torture  than  that  endured 
by  a  mind  which  so  witnessed  the  dying  of  one 
organ  after  another  of  its  own  body,  shut  up,  as 
it  were,  in  the  fulness  of  life,  within  a  corpse. 

I  looked  in  bewilderment  at  the  scratch  on  his 
face.  "How  did  he  do  it?"  I  asked. 

Carefully  Craig  drew  off  the  azure  ring  and 
examined  it.  In  that  part  which  surrounded  the 
blue  lapis  lazuli,  he  indicated  a  hollow  point,  con- 


220  ,THE   SILENT   BULLET 

eealed.  It  worked  with  a  spring  and  communi- 
cated with  a  little  receptacle  behind,  in  such  a 
way  that  the  murderer  could  give  the  fatal  scratch 
while  shaking  hands  with  his  victim. 

I  shuddered,  for  my  hand  had  once  been  clasped 
by  the  one  wearing  that  poison  ring,  which  had 
sent  Templeton,  and  his  fiancee  and  now  Vander- 
dyke  himself,  to  their  deaths. 


VIII 

"SPONTANEOUS  COMBUSTION" 

KENNEDY  and  I  had  risen  early,  for  we  were  hust- 
ling to  get  off  for  a  week-end  at  Atlantic  City. 
Kennedy  was  tugging  at  the  straps  of  his  grip 
and  remonstrating  with  it  under  his  breath,  when 
the  door  opened  and  a  messenger-boy  stuck  his 
head  in. 

"Does  Mr.  Kennedy  live  here?"  he  asked. 

Craig  impatiently  seized  the  pencil,  signed  hig 
name  in  the  book,  and  tore  open  a  night  letter. 
From  the  prolonged  silence  that  followed  I  felt 
a  sense  of  misgiving.  I,  at  least,  had  set  my 
heart  on  the  Atlantic  City  outing,  but  with  the 
appearance  of  the  messenger-boy  I  intuitively  felt 
that  the  board  walk  would  not  see  us  that  week. 

"I'm  afraid  the  Atlantic  City  trip  is  off,  Wal- 
ter," remarked  Craig  seriously.  "You  remem- 
ber Tom  Langley  in  our  class  at  the  university  t 
Well,  read  that." 

I  laid  down  my  safety  razor  and  took  the  mes- 
sage. Tom  had  not  spared  words,  and  I  could 
see  at  a  glance  at  the  mere  length  of  the  thing 
that  it  must  be  important.  It  was  from  Camp 
Hang-out  in  the  Adirondacks. 

991 


222  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"Dear  old  K.,"  it  began,  regardless  of  expense, 
"can  you  arrange  to  come  up  here  by  next  train 
after  you  receive  this?  (Uncle  Lewis  is  dead. 
Most  mysterious.  Last  night  after  we  retired 
noticed  peculiar  odour  about  house.  Didn't  pay 
much  attention.  This  morning  found  him  lying 
on  floor  of  living-room,  head  and  chest  literally 
burned  to  ashes,  but  lower  part  of  body  and  arms 
untouched.  Room  shows  no  evidence  of  fire,  but 
full  of  sort  of  oily  soot.  Otherwise  nothing  un- 
usual. On  table  near  body  siphon  of  seltzer,  bot- 
tle of  imported  gin,  limes,  and  glass  for  rickeys. 
Have  removed  body,  but  am  keeping  room  exactly 
as  found  until  you  arrive.  Bring  Jameson.  Wire 
if  you  cannot  come,  but  make  every  effort  and 
spare  no  expense.  Anxiously,  Tom  Langley." 

Craig  was  impatiently  looking  at  his  watch  as 
I  hastily  ran  through  the  letter. 

' '  Hurry,  Walter, ' '  he  exclaimed.  ' '  We  can  just 
catch  the  Empire  State.  Never  mind  shaving — 
we'll  have  a  stop-over  at  Utica  to  wait  for  the 
Montreal  express.  Here,  put  the  rest  of  your 
things  in  your  grip  and  jam  it  shut.  We'll  get 
something  to  eat  on  the  train — I  hope.  I'll  wire 
we're  coming.  Don't  forget  to  latch  the  door." 

Kennedy  was  already  half-way  to  the  elevator, 
and  I  followed  ruefully,  still  thinking  of  the  ocean 
and  the  piers,  the  bands  and  the  roller  chairs. 

It  was  a  good  ten-hour  journey  up  to  the  little 
station  nearest  Camp  Hang-out  and  at  least  a  two- 


"  SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION "    223 

hour  ride  after  that.  We  had  plenty  of  time  to 
reflect  over  what  this  death  might  mean  to  Tom 
and  his  sister  and  to  speculate  on  the  manner  of 
it.  Tom  and  Grace  Langley  were  relatives  by 
marriage  of  Lewis  Langley,  who,  after  the  death 
of  his  wife,  had  made  them  his  proteges.  Lewis 
Langley  was  principally  noted,  as  far  as  I  could 
recall,  for  being  a  member  of  some  of  the  fastest 
clubs  of  both  New  York  and  London.  Neither 
Kennedy  nor  myself  had  shared  in  the  world's 
opinion  of  him,  for  we  knew  how  good  he  had 
been  to  Tom  in  college  and,  from  Tom,  how  good 
he  had  been  to  Grace.  In  fact,  he  had  made  Tom 
assume  the  Langley  name,  and  in  every  way  had 
treated  the  brother  and  sister  as  if  they  had  been 
his  own  children. 

Tom  met  us  with  a  smart  trap  at  the  station, 
a  sufficient  indication,  if  we  had  not  already 
known,  of  the  "roughing  it"  at  such  a  luxurious 
Adirondack ' '  camp ' '  as  Camp  Hang-out.  He  was 
unaffectedly  glad  to  see  us,  and  it  was  not  diffi- 
cult to  read  in  his  face  the  worry  which  the  affair 
had  already  given  him. 

"Tom,  I'm  awfully  sorry  to — "  began  Craig 
when,  warned  by  Langley 's  look  at  the  curious 
crowd  that  always  gathers  at  the  railroad  station 
at  train  time,  he  cut  it  short.  We  stood  silently 
a  moment  while  Tom  was  arranging  the  trap  for 
us. 

As  we  swung  around  the  bend  in  the  road  that 


224  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

cut  off  the  little  station  and  its  crowd  of  look- 
ers-on, Kennedy  was  the  first  to  speak.  "Tom," 
he  said,  "first  of  all,  let  me  ask  that  when  we  get 
to  the  camp  we  are  to  be  simply  two  old  classmates 
whom  you  had  asked  to  spend  a  few  days  before 
the  tragedy  occurred.  Anything  will  do.  There 
may  be  nothing  at  all  to  your  evident  suspicions, 
and  then  again  there  may.  At  any  rate,  play  the 
game  safely — don't  arouse  any  feeling  which 
might  cause  unpleasantness  later  in  case  you  are 
mistaken." 

"I  quite  agree  with  you,"  answered  Tom. 
"You  wired,  from  Albany,  I  think,  to  keep  the 
facts  out  of  the  papers  as  much  as  possible.  I'm 
afraid  it  is  too  late  for  that.  Of  course  the 
thing  became  vaguely  known  in  Saranac,  al- 
though the  county  officers  have  been  very  consid- 
erate of  us,  and  this  morning  a  New  York  Record 
correspondent  was  over  and  talked  with  us.  I 
couldn't  refuse,  that  would  have  put  a  very  bad 
face  on  it." 

"Too  bad,"  I  exclaimed.  "I  had  hoped,  at 
least,  to  be  able  to  keep  the  report  down  to  a 
few  lines  in  the  Star.  But  the  Record  will  have 
such  a  yellow  story  about  it  that  I'll  simply  have 
to  do  something  to  counteract  the  effect." 

"Yes,"  assented  Craig.  "But— wait.  Let's 
see  the  Record  story  first.  The  office  doesn't 
know  you're  up  here.  You  can  hold  up  the  Star 
and  give  us  time  to  look  things  over,  perhaps 


" SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    225 

get  in  a  beat  on  the  real  story  and  set  things 
right.  Anyhow,  the  news  is  out.  That's  certain. 
We  must  work  quickly.  Tell  me,  Tom,  who  are 
at  the  camp — anyone  except  relatives?" 

"No,"  he  replied,  guardedly  measuring  his 
words.  "  Uncle  Lewis  had  invited  his  brother 
James  and  his  niece  and  nephew,  Isabelle  and 
James,  junior — we  call  him  Junior.  Then  there 
are  Grace  and  myself  and  a  distant  relative,  Har- 
rington Brown,  and — oh,  of  course,  uncle's  phy- 
sician, Doctor  Putnam." 

"Who  is  Harrington  Brown?"  asked  Craig. 

"He's  on  the  other  side  of  the  Langley  family, 
on  Uncle  Lewis's  mother's  side.  I  think,  or  at 
least  Grace  thinks,  that  he  is  quite  in  love  with 
Isabelle.  Harrington  Brown  would  be  quite  a 
catch.  Of  course  he  isn't  wealthy,  but  his  family 
is  mighty  well  connected.  Oh,  Craig,"  sighed 
Langley,  "I  wish  he  hadn't  done  it — Uncle  Lewis, 
I  mean.  Why  did  he  invite  his  brother  up  here 
now  when  he  needed  to  recover  from  the  swift 
pace  of  last  winter  in  New  York?  You  know — 
or  you  don't  know,  I  suppose,  but  you'll  know  it 
now — when  he  and  Uncle  Jim  got  together  there 
was  nothing  to  it  but  one  drink  after  another. 
Doctor  Putnam  was  quite  disgusted,  at  least  he 
professed  to  be,  but,  Craig,"  he  lowered  his  voice 
to  a  whisper,  as  if  the  very  'forest  had  ears, 
"they're  all  alike — they've  been  just  waiting  for 
Uncle  Lewis  to  drink  himself  to  death.  Oh,"  he 


226  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

added  bitterly,  "there's  no  love  lost  between  me 
and  the  relatives  on  that  score,  I  can  assure  you." 

"How  did  you  find  him  that  morning1?"  asked 
Kennedy,  as  if  to  turn  off  this  unlocking  of  fam- 
ily secrets  to  strangers. 

"That's  the  worst  part  of  the  whole  affair," 
replied  Tom,  and  even  in  the  dusk  I  could  see  the 
lines  of  his  face  tighten.  "You  know  Uncle 
Lewis  was  a  hard  drinker,  but  he  never  seemed 
to  show  it  much.  We  had  been  out  on  the  lake 
in  the  motor-boat  fishing  all  the  afternoon  and — 
well,  I  must  admit  both  my  uncles  had  had  fre- 
quent recourse  to  *  pocket  pistols,'  and  I  remem- 
ber they  referred  to  it  each  time  as  'bait.'  Then 
after  supper  nothing  would  do  but  fizzes  and 
rickeys.  I  was  disgusted,  and  after  reading  a 
bit  went  to  bed.  Harrington  and  my  uncles  sat 
up  with  Doctor  Putnam — according  to  Uncle  Jim 
— for  a  couple  of  hours  longer.  Then  Harring- 
ton, Doctor  Putnam,  and  Uncle  Jim  went  to  bed, 
leaving  Uncle  Lewis  still  drinking. 

"I  remember  waking  in  the  night,  and  the 
house  seemed  saturated  with  a  peculiar  odour.  I 
never  smelt  anything  like  it  in  my  life.  So  I  got 
up  and  slipped  into  my  bathrobe.  I  met  Grace 
in  the  hall.  She  was  sniffing. 

"  'Don't  you  smell  something  burning?'  she 
asked. 

"I  said  I  did  and  started  down-stairs  to  in- 
vestigate. Everything  was  dark,  but  that  smell 


" SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    227, 

was  all  over  the  house.  I  looked  in  each  room 
down-stairs  as  I  went,  but  could  see  nothing.  The 
kitchen  and  dining-room  were  all  right.  I 
glanced  into  the  living-room,  but,  while  the  smell 
was  more  noticeable  there,  I  could  see  no  evi- 
dence of  a  fire  except  the  dying  embers  on  the 
hearth.  It  had  been  coolish  that  night,  and  we 
had  had  a  few  logs  blazing.  I  didn't  examine  the 
room — there  seemed  no  reason  for  it.  We  went 
back  to  our  rooms,  and  in  the  morning  they  found 
the  gruesome  object  I  had  missed  in  the  dark- 
ness and  shadows  of  the  living-room. " 

Kennedy  was  intently  listening.  "Who  found 
him!"  he  asked. 

"Harrington,"  replied  Tom.  "He  roused  us. 
Harrington's  theory  is  that  uncle  set  himself  on 
fire  with  a  spark  from  his  cigar — a  charred  cigar- 
butt  was  found  on  the  floor." 

We  found  Tom's  relatives  a  saddened,  silent 
party  in  the  face  of  the  tragedy.  Kennedy  and 
I  apologised  very  profusely  for  our  intrusion,  but 
Tom  quickly  interrupted,  as  we  had  agreed,  by 
explaining  that  he  had  insisted  on  our  coming,  as 
old  friends  on  whom  he  felt  he  could  rely,  espe- 
cially to  set  the  matter  right  in  the  newspapers. 

I  think  Craig  noticed  keenly  the  reticence  of 
the  family  group  in  the  mystery — I  might  almost 
have  called  it  suspicion.  They  did  not  seem  to 
know  just  whether  to  take  it  as  an  accident  or  as 
something  worse,  and  each  seemed  to  entertain  a 


228  THE    SILENT   BULLET 

reserve  toward  the  rest  which  was  very  uncom- 
fortable. 

Mr.  Langley's  attorney  in  New  York  had  been 
notified,  but  apparently  was  out  of  town,  for  he 
had  not  been  heard  from.  They  seemed  rather 
anxious  to  get  word  from  him. 

Dinner  over,  the  family  group  separated,  leav- 
ing Tom  an  opportunity  to  take  us  into  the  grue- 
some living-room.  Of  course  the  remains  had 
been  removed,  but  otherwise  the  room  was  exactly 
as  it  had  been  when  Harrington  discovered  the 
tragedy.  I  did  not  see  the  body,  which  was  lying 
in  an  anteroom,  but  Kennedy  did,  and  spent  some 
time  in  there. 

After  he  rejoined  us,  Kennedy  next  examined 
the  fireplace.  It  was  full  of  ashes  from  the  logs 
which  had  been  lighted  on  the  fatal  night.  He 
noted  attentively  the  distance  of  Lewis  Langley's 
chair  from  the  fireplace,  and  remarked  that  the 
varnish  on  the  chair  was  not  even  blistered. 

Before  the  chair,  on  the  floor  where  the  body 
had  been  found,  he  pointed  out  to  us  the  peculiar 
ash-marks  for  some  space  around,  but  it  really 
seemed  to  me  as  if  something  else  interested  him 
more  than  these  ash-marks. 

We  had  been  engaged  perhaps  half  an  hour  in 
viewing  the  room.  At  last  Craig  suddenly 
stopped. 

"Tom,"  he  said,  "I  think  I'll  wait  till  day- 
light before  I  go  any  further.  I  can't  tell  with 


"SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    229 

certainty  tinder  these  lights,  though  perhaps  they 
show  me  some  things  the  sunlight  wouldn't  show. 
We'd  better  leave  everything  just  as  it  is  until 
morning." 

So  we  locked  the  room  again  and  went  into  a 
sort  of  library  across  the  hall. 

We  were  sitting  in  silence,  each  occupied  with 
his  own  thoughts  on  the  mystery,  when  the  tele- 
phone rang.  It  proved  to  be  a  long-distance  call 
from  New  York  for  Tom  himself.  His  uncle's 
attorney  had  received  the  news  at  his  home  out 
on  Long  Island  and  had  hurried  to  the  city  to 
take  charge  of  the  estate.  But  that  was  not  the 
news  that  caused  the  grave  look  on  Tom's  face  as 
he  nervously  rejoined  us. 

"That  was  uncle's  lawyer,  Mr.  Clark,  of  Clark 
&  Burdick,"  he  said.  "He  has  opened  uncle's 
personal  safe  in  the  offices  of  the  Langley  estate 
— you  remember  them,  Craig — where  all  the 
property  of  the  Langley  heirs  is  administered  by 
the  trustees.  He  says  he  can't  find  the  will, 
though  he  knows  there  was  a  will  and  that  it  was 
placed  in  that  safe  some  time  ago.  There  is  no 
duplicate." 

The  full  purport  of  this  information  at  once 
flashed  on  me,  and  I  was  on  the  point  of  blurting 
out  my  sympathy,  when  I  saw  by  the  look  which 
Craig  and  Tom  exchanged  that  they  had  already 
realised  it  and  understood  each  other.  Without 
the  will  the  blood-relatives  would  inherit  all  of 


230  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

Lewis  Langley's  interest  in  the  old  Langley  es- 
tate. Tom  and  his  sister  would  be  penniless. 

It  was  late,  yet  we  sat  for  nearly  an  hour 
longer,  and  I  don't  think  we  exchanged  a  half- 
dozen  sentences  in  all  that  time.  Craig  seemed 
absorbed  in  thought.  At  length,  as  the  great  hall- 
clock  sounded  midnight,  we  rose  as  if  by  common 
consent. 

"Tom,"  said  Craig,  and  I  could  feel  the  sym- 
pathy that  welled  up  in  his  voice, ' '  Tom,  old  man, 
I'll  get  at  the  bottom  of  this  mystery  if  human 
intelligence  can  do  it." 

"I  know  you  will,  Craig,"  responded  Tom, 
grasping  each  of  us  by  the  hand.  "That's  why 
I  so  much  wanted  you  fellows  to  come  up  here." 

Early  in  the  morning  Kennedy  aroused  me. 
"Now,  Walter,  I'm  going  to  ask  you  to  come 
down  into  the  living-room  with  me,  and  we  '11  take 
a  look  at  it  in  the  daytime." 

I  hurried  into  my  clothes,  and  together  we 
quietly  went  down.  Starting  with  the  exact  spot 
where  the  unfortunate  man  had  been  discovered, 
Kennedy  began  a  minute  examination  of  the  floor, 
using  his  pocket  lens.  Every  few  moments  he 
would  stop  to  examine  a  spot  on  the  rug  or  on 
the  hardwood  floor  more  intently.  Several  times 
I  saw  him  scrape  up  something  with  the  blade  of 
his  knife  and  carefully  preserve  the  scrapings, 
each  in  a  separate  piece  of  paper. 

Sitting  idly  by,  I  could  not  for  the  life  of  me 


"SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    231 

see  just  what  good  it  did  for  me  to  be  there,  and 
I  said  as  much.  Kennedy  laughed  quietly. 

''You're  a  material  witness,  Walter,"  he  re- 
plied. "Perhaps  I  shall  need  you  some  day  to 
testify  that  I  actually  found  these  spots  in  this 
room." 

Just  then  Tom  stuck  his  head  in.  "Can  I 
help?"  he  asked.  "Why  didn't  you  tell  me  you 
were  going  at  it  so  early!" 

"No,  thanks,"  answered  Craig,  rising  from  the 
floor.  "I  was  just  making  a  careful  examination 
of  the  room  before  anyone  was  up  so  that  nobody 
would  think  I  was  too  interested.  I've  finished. 
But  you  can  help  me,  after  all.  Do  you  think 
you  could  describe  exactly  how  everyone  was 
dressed  that  night?" 

"Why,  I  can  try.  Let  me  see.  To  begin  with, 
uncle  had  on  a  shooting- jacket — that  was  pretty 
well  burnt,  as  you  know.  Why,  in  fact,  we  all  had 
our  shooting-jackets  on.  The  ladies  were  in 
white." 

Craig  pondered  a  little,  but  did  not  seem  dis- 
posed to  pursue  the  subject  further,  until  Tom 
volunteered  the  information  that  since  the  tragedy 
none  of  them  had  been  wearing  their  shooting- 
jackets. 

"We've  all  been  wearing  city  clothes,"  he  re- 
marked. 

"Could  you  get  your  Uncle  James  and  your 
Cousin  Junior  to  go  with  you  for  an  hour  or  two 


232  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

this  morning  on  the  lake,  or  on  a  tramp  in  the 
woods?"  asked  Craig  after  a  moment's  thought. 

"Really,  Craig,"  responded  Tom  doubtfully, 
"I  ought  to  go  to  Saranac  to  complete  the  ar- 
rangements for  taking  Uncle  Lewis's  body  to  New 
!York." 

"Very  well,  persuade  them  to  go  with  you. 
Anything,  so  long  as  you  keep  me  from  interrup- 
tion for  an  hour  or  two." 

They  agreed  on  doing  that,  and  as  by  that  time 
most  of  the  family  were  up,  we  went  in  to  break- 
fast, another  silent  and  suspicious  meal. 

After  breakfast  Kennedy  tactfully  withdrew 
from  the  family,  and  I  did  the  same.  We 
wandered  off  in  the  direction  of  the  stables  and 
there  fell  to  admiring  some  of  the  horses.  The 
groom,  who  seemed  to  be  a  sensible  and  pleasant 
sort  of  fellow,  was  quite  ready  to  talk,  and  soon 
he  and  Craig  were  deep  in  discussing  the  game 
of  the  north  country. 

"Many  rabbits  about  here?"  asked  Kennedy  at 
length,  when  they  had  exhausted  the  larger  game. 

"Oh,  yes.  I  saw  one  this  morning,  sir,"  re- 
plied the  groom. 

"Indeed?"  said  Kennedy.  "Do  you  suppose 
you  could  catch  a  couple  for  me?" 

"Guess  I  could,  sir — alive,  you  mean?" 

"Oh,  yes,  alive — I  don't  want  you  to  violate 
the  game  laws.  This  is  the  closed  season,  isn't 
it?" 


"SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    233 

"Yes,  sir,  but  then  it's  all  right,  sir,  here  on 
the  estate." 

"Bring  them  to  me  this  afternoon,  or — no,  keep 
them  here  in  the  stable  in  a  cage  and  let  me  know 
when  you  have  them.  If  anybody  asks  you  about 
them,  say  they  belong  to  Mr.  Tom." 

Craig  handed  a  small  treasury  note  to  the 
groom,  who  took  it  with  a  grin  and  touched  his 
hat. 

"Thanks,"  he  said.  "I'll  let  you  know  when 
I  have  the  bunnies." 

As  we  walked  slowly  back  from  the  stables  we 
caught  sight  of  Tom  down  at  the  boat-house  just 
putting  off  in  the  motor-boat  with  his  uncle  and 
cousin.  Craig  waved  to  him,  and  he  walked  up 
to  meet  us. 

"While  you're  in  Saranac,"  said  Craig,  "buy 
me  a  dozen  or  so  test-tubes.  Only,  don't  let  any- 
one here  at  the  house  know  you  are  buying  them. 
They  might  ask  questions." 

While  they  were  gone  Kennedy  stole  into  James 
Langley's  room  and  after  a  few  minutes  returned 
to  our  room  with  the  hunt  ing- jacket.  He 
carefully  examined  it  with  his  pocket  lens.  Then 
he  filled  a  drinking-glass  with  warm  boiled  water 
and  added  a  few  pinches  of  table  salt.  With  a 
piece  of  sterilised  gauze  from  Doctor  Putnam's 
medicine-chest,  he  carefully  washed  off  a  few 
portions  of  the  coat  and  set  the  glass  and  the 
gauze  soaking  in  it  aside.  Then  he  returned  the 


234  THE    SILENT   BULLET 

coat  to  the  closet  where  hie  had  found  it.  Next, 
as  silently,  he  stole  into  Junior's  room  and  re- 
peated the  process  with  his  hunting- jacket,  using 
another  glass  and  piece  of  gauze. 

"  While  I  am  out  of  the  room,  Walter,"  he  said, 
"I  want  you  to  take  these  two  glasses,  cover  them, 
and  number  them  and  on  a  slip  of  paper  which 
you  must  retain,  place  the  names  of  the  owners 
of  the  respective  coats.  I  don't  like  this  part  of 
it — I  hate  to  play  spy  and  would  much  rather 
come  out  in  the  open,  but  there  is  nothing  else  to 
do,  and  it  is  much  better  for  all  concerned  that  I 
should  play  the  game  secretly  just  now.  There 
may  be  no  cause  for  suspicion  at  all.  In  that  case 
I'd  never  forgive  myself  for  starting  a  family: 
row.  And  then  again — but  we  shall  see." 

After  I  had  numbered  and  recorded  the  glasses 
Kennedy  returned,  and  we  went  down-stairs 
again. 

" Curious  about  the  will,  isn't  it?"  I  remarked 
as  we  stood  on  the  wide  verandah  a  moment. 

4 'Yes,"  he  replied.  "It  may  be  necessary  to  go 
back  to  New  York  to  delve  into  that  part  of  it  be- 
fore we  get  through,  but  I  hope  not.  We  '11  wait. ' ' 

At  this  point  the  groom  interrupted  us  to  say 
that  he  had  caught  the  rabbits.  Kennedy  at  once 
hurried  to  the  stable.  There  he  rolled  up  his 
sleeves,  pricked  a  vein  in  his  arm,  and  injected 
a  small  quantity  of  his  own  blood  into  one  of  the 
rabbits.  The  other  he  did  not  touch. 


"SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    235 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  when  Tom  returned 
from  town  with  his  uncle  and  cousin.  He  seemed 
even  more  agitated  than  usual.  Without  a  word 
he  hurried  up  from  the  landing  and  sought  us 
out. 

"What  do  you  think  of  that?"  he  cried,  open- 
ing a  copy  of  the  Record,  and  laying  it  flat  on  the 
library  table. 

There  on  the  front  page  was  Lewis  Langley '9 
picture  with  a  huge  scare-head: 

MYSTERIOUS  CASE  OP  SPONTANEOUS  COMBUSTION 

"It's  all  out,"  groaned  Tom,  as  we  bent  over 
to  read  the  account.  "And  such  a  story!" 

Under  the  date  of  the  day  previous,  a  Saranac 
despatch  ran : 

Lewis  Langley,  well  known  as  sporting  man  and  club 
member  in  New  York,  and  eldest  son  of  the  late  Lewis 
Langley,  the  banker,  was  discovered  dead  under  the  most 
mysterious  circumstances  this  morning  at  Camp  Hang- 
out, twelve  miles  from  this  town. 

The  Death  of  "Old  Krook"  in  Dickens  'a  "Bleak 
House  "  or  of  the  victim  in  one  of  Marryat's  most  thrill- 
ing tales  was  not  more  gruesome  than  this  actual  fact. 
It  is  without  doubt  a  case  of  spontaneous  human  com- 
bustion, such  as  is  recorded  beyond  dispute  in  medical 
and  medico-legal  text-books  of  the  past  two  centuries. 
Scientists  in  this  city  consulted  for  the  Record  agree 
that,  while  rare,  spontaneous  human  combustion  is  an 


236  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

established  fact  and  that  everything  in  this  curious  case 
goes  to  show  that  another  has  been  added  to  the  already 
well-authenticated  list  of  cases  recorded  in  America  and 
Europe.  The  family  refuse  to  be  interviewed,  which 
seems  to  indicate  that  the  rumours  in  medical  circles  in 
Saranac  have  a  solid  basis  of  fact. 

Then  followed  a  circumstantial  account  of  the 
life  of  Langley  and  the  events  leading  up  to  the 
discovery  of  the  body — fairly  accurate  in  itself, 
but  highly  coloured. 

"The  Record  man  must  have  made  good  use  of 
his  time  here,"  I  commented,  as  I  finished  read- 
ing the  despatch.  "And — well,  they  must  have 
done  some  hard  work  in  New  York  to  get  this 
story  up  so  completely — see,  after  the  despatch 
follow  a  lot  of  interviews,  and  here  is  a  short 
article  on  spontaneous  combustion  itself." 

Harrington  and  the  rest  of  the  family  had  just 
come  in. 

"What's  this  we  hear  about  the  Record  having 
an  article?"  Harrington  asked.  "Bead  it  aloud, 
Professor,  so  we  can  all  hear  it." 

"  'Spontaneous  human  combustion,  or  catacau- 
sis  ebriosus,'  "  began  Craig,  "  'is  one  of  the 
baffling  human  scientific  mysteries.  Indeed,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  but  that  individuals  have  in  sonic 
strange  and  inexplicable  manner  caught  fire  and 
been  partially  or  almost  wholly  consumed. 

"  'Some  have  attributed  it  to  gases  in  the  body, 
such  as  carbureted  hydrogen.  Once  it  was  noted 


"SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    237 

at  the  Hotel  Dieu  in  Paris  that  a  body  on  being 
dissected  gave  forth  a  gas  which  was  inflammable 
and  burned  with  a  bluish  flame.  Others  have  at- 
tributed the  combustion  to  alcohol.  A  toper 
several  years  ago  in  Brooklyn  and  New  York  used 
to  make  money  by  blowing  his  breath  through  a 
wire  gauze  and  lighting  it.  Whatever  the  cause, 
medical  literature  records  seventy-six  cases  of 
catacausis  in  two  hundred  years. 

"  'The  combustion  seems  to  be  sudden  and  is 
apparently  confined  to  the  cavities,  the  abdomen, 
chest,  and  head.  Victims  of  ordinary  fire  acci- 
dents rush  hither  and  thither  frantically,  succumb 
from  exhaustion,  their  limbs  are  burned,  and  their 
clothing  is  all  destroyed.  But  in  catacausis  they 
are  stricken  down  without  warning,  the  limbs  are 
rarely  burned,  and  only  the  clothing  in  contact 
with  the  head  and  chest  is  consumed.  The  resi- 
due is  like  a  distillation  of  animal  tissue,  grey 
and  dark,  with  an  overpoweringly  fetid  odour. 
They  are  said  to  burn  with  a  flickering  stifled  blue 
flame,  and  water,  far  from  arresting  the  combus- 
tion, seems  to  add  to  it.  Gin  is  particularly  rich 
in  inflammable,  empyreumatic  oils,  as  they  are 
called,  and  in  most  cases  it  is  recorded  that  the 
catacausis  took  place  among  gin-drinkers,  old  and 
obese. 

"  'Within  the  past  few  years  cases  are  on 
record  which  seem  to  establish  catacausis  beyond 
doubt.  In  one  case  the  heat  was  so  great  as  to 


238  THE    SILENT   BULLET 

explode  a  pistol  in  the  pocket  of  the  victim.  In 
another,  a  woman,  the  victim's  husband  was 
asphyxiated  by  the  smoke.  The  woman  weighed 
one  hundred  and  eighty  pounds  in  life,  but  the 
ashes  weighed  only  twelve  pounds.  In  all  these 
cases  the  proof  of  spontaneous  combustion  seems 
conclusive.'  ' 

As  Craig  finished  reading,  we  looked  blankly, 
h6rrified,  at  one  another.  It  was  too  dreadful  to 
realise. 

"What  do  you  think  of  it,  Professor?"  asked 
James  Langley,  at  length.  "I've  read  somewhere 
of  such  cases,  but  to  think  of  its  actually  hap- 
pening— and  to  my  own  brother.  Do  you  really 
think  Lewis  could  have  met  his  death  in  this  ter- 
rible manner?" 

Kennedy  made  no  reply.  Harrington  seemed 
absorbed  in  thought.  A  shudder  passed  over  us 
as  we  thought  about  it.  But,  gruesome  as  it  was, 
it  was  evident  that  the  publication  of  the  story  in 
the  Record  had  relieved  the  feelings  of  the  family 
group  in  one  respect — it  at  least  seemed  to  offer 
an  explanation.  It  was  noticeable  that  the  sus- 
picious air  with  which  everyone  had  regarded 
everyone  else  was  considerably  dispelled. 

Tom  said  nothing  until  the  others  had  with- 
drawn. ' « Kennedy, ' '  he  burst  out,  then, ' « do  you 
believe  that  such  combustion  is  absolutely  spon- 
taneous? Don't  you  believe  that  something  else 
is  necessary  to  start  it?" 


" SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    239 

"I'd  rather  not  express  an  opinion  just  yet, 
Tom,"  answered  Craig  carefully.  "Now,  if  yon 
can  get  Harrington  and  Doctor  Putnam  away 
from  the  house  for  a  short  time,  as  you  did  with 
your  uncle  and  cousin  this  morning,  I  may  be  able 
to  tell  you  something  about  this  case  soon." 

Again  Kennedy  stole  into  another  bed-room, 
and  returned  to  our  room  with  a  hunting- jacket. 
Just  as  he  had  done  before,  he  carefully  washed 
it  off  with  the  gauze  soaked  in  the  salt  solution 
and  quickly  returned  the  coat,  repeating  the  pro- 
cess with  Doctor  Putnam's  coat  and,  last,  that  of 
Tom  himself.  Finally  he  turned  his  back  while 
I  sealed  the  glasses  and  marked  and  recorded 
them  on  my  slip. 

The  next  day  was  spent  mainly  in  preparations 
for  the  journey  to  New  York  with  the  body  of 
Lewis  Langley.  Kennedy  was  very  busy  on  what 
seemed  to  me  to  be  preparations  for  some  mys- 
terious chemical  experiments.  I  found  myself 
fully  occupied  in  keeping  special  correspondents 
from  all  over  the  country  at  bay. 

That  evening  after  dinner  we  were  all  sitting 
in  the  open  summer  house  over  the  boat-house. 
Smudges  of  green  pine  were  burning  and  smoking 
on  little  artificial  islands  of  stone  near  the  lake 
shore,  lighting  up  the  trees  on  every  side  with  a 
red  glare.  Tom  and  his  sister  were  seated  with 
Kennedy  and  myself  on  one  side,  while  some  dis- 
tance from  us  Harrington  was  engaged  in  earnest 


240  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

conversation  with  Isabelle.  The  other  members 
of  the  family  were  further  removed.  That 
seemed  typical  to  me  of  the  way  the  family  group 
split  up. 

"Mr.  Kennedy,"  remarked  Grace  in  a  thought- 
ful, low  tone,  "what  do  you  make  of  that  Record 
article?" 

"Very  clever,  no  doubt,"  replied  Craig. 

"But  don't  you  think  it  strange  about  the 
will?" 

"Hush,"  whispered  Tom,  for  Isabelle  and  Har- 
rington had  ceased  talking  and  might  perhaps  be 
listening. 

Just  then  one  of  the  servants  came  up  with  a 
telegram. 

Tom  hastily  opened  it  and  read  the  message 
eagerly  in  the  corner  of  the  summer  house  nearest 
one  of  the  glowing  smudges.  I  felt  instinctively 
that  it  was  from  his  lawyer.  He  turned  and 
beckoned  to  Kennedy  and  myself. 

"What  do  you  think  of  that?"  he  whispered 
hoarsely. 

We  bent  over  and  in  the  flickering  light  read 
the  message : 

New  York  papers  full  of  spontaneous  combustion 
story.  Record  had  exclusive  story  yesterday,  but  all 
papers  to-day  feature  even  more.  Is  it  true?  Please 
wire  additional  details  at  once.  Also  immediate  instruc- 
tions regarding  loss  of  will.  Has  been  abstracted  from 
safe.  Could  Lewis  Langley  have  taken  it  himself?  Un- 


"SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    241 

less  new  facts  soon  must  make  loss  public  or  issue  state- 
ment Lewis  Langley  intestate. 

DANIEL  CLARK. 

Tom  looked  blankly  at  Kennedy,  and  then  at 
his  sister,  who  was  sitting  alone.  I  thought  I 
could  read  what  was  passing  in  his  mind.  With 
all  his  faults  Lewis  Langley  had  been  a  good 
foster-parent  to  his  adopted  children.  But  it  was 
all  over  now  if  the  will  was  lost. 

"What  can  I  do?"  asked  Tom  hopelessly.  "I 
have  nothing  to  reply  to  him." 

"But  I  have,"  quietly  returned  Kennedy, 
deliberately  folding  up  the  message  and  handing 
it  back.  "Tell  them  all  to  be  in  the  library  in 
fifteen  minutes.  This  message  hurries  me  a  bit, 
but  I  am  prepared.  You  will  have  something  to 
wire  Mr.  Clark  after  that."  Then  he  strode  off 
toward  the  house,  leaving  us  to  gather  the  group 
together  in  considerable  bewilderment. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later  we  had  all  assem- 
bled in  the  library,  across  the  hall  from  the  room 
in  which  Lewis  Langley  had  been  found.  As 
usual  Kennedy  began  by  leaping  straight  into  the 
middle  of  his  subject. 

"Early  in  the  eighteenth  century,"  he  com- 
menced slowly,  "a  woman  was  found  burned  to 
death.  There  were  no  clues,  and  the  scientists  of 
that  time  suggested  spontaneous  combustion. 
This  explanation  was  accepted.  The  theory 


242  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

always  has  been  that  the  process  of  respiration  by 
which  the  tissues  of  the  body  are  used  up  and  got 
rid  of  gives  the  body  a  temperature,  and  it  has 
seemed  that  it  may  be  possible,  by  preventing  the 
escape  of  this  heat,  to  set  fire  to  the  body." 

We  were  leaning  forward  expectantly,  horrified 
by  the  thought  that  perhaps,  after  all,  the  Record 
was  correct. 

"Now,"  resumed  Kennedy,  his  tone  changing, 
"suppose  we  try  a  little  experiment — one  that 
was  tried  very  convincingly  by  the  immortal 
Liebig.  Here  is  a  sponge.  I  am  going  to  soak 
it  in  gin  from  this  bottle,  the  same  that  Mr.  Lang- 
ley  was  drinking  from  on  the  night  of  the — er — » 
the  tragedy." 

Kennedy  took  the  saturated  sponge  and  placed 
it  in  an  agate-iron  pan  from  the  kitchen.  Then 
he  lighted  it.  The  bluish  flame  shot  upward,  and 
in  tense  silence  we  watched  it  burn  lower  and 
lower,  till  all  the  alchohol  was  consumed.  Then 
he  picked  up  the  sponge  and  passed  it  around. 
It  was  dry,  but  the  sponge  itself  had  not  been 
singed. 

"We  now  know,"  he  continued,  "that  from 
the  nature  of  combustion  it  is  impossible  for  the 
human  body  to  undergo  spontaneous  ignition  or 
combustion  in  the  way  the  scientific  experts  of  the 
past  century  believed.  Swathe  the  body  in  the 
thickest  of  non-conductors  of  heat,  and  what  hap- 
pens ?  A  profuse  perspiration  exudes,  and  before 


"SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    243 

such  an  ignition  could  possibly  take  place  all  the 
moisture  of  the  body  would  have  to  be  evapor- 
ated. As  seventy-five  per  cent,  or  more  of  the 
body  is  water,  it  is  evident  that  enormous  heat 
would  be  necessary — moisture  is  the  great  safe- 
guard. The  experiment  which  I  have  shown  you 
could  be  duplicated  with  specimens  of  human 
organs  preserved  for  years  in  alcohol  in  museums. 
They  would  burn  just  as  this  sponge — the  speci- 
men itself  would  be  very  nearly  uninjured  by  the 
burning  of  the  alcohol." 

"Then,  Professor  Kennedy,  you  maintain  that 
my  brother  did  not  meet  his  death  by  such  an 
accident!"  asked  James  Langley. 

"Exactly  that,  sir,"  replied  Craig.  "One  of 
the  most  important  aspects  of  the  historic  faith 
in  this  phenomenon  is  that  of  its  skilful  employ- 
ment in  explaining  away  what  would  otherwise 
appear  to  be  convincing  circumstantial  evidence 
in  cases  of  accusations  of  murder." 

"Then  how  do  you  explain  Mr.  Langley 's 
death?"  demanded  Harrington.  "My  theory  of 
a  spark  from  a  cigar  may  be  true,  after  all." 

"I  am  coming  to  that  in  a  moment,"  answered 
Kennedy  quietly.  "My  first  suspicion  was 
aroused  by  what  not  even  Doctor  Putnam  seems 
to  have  noticed.  The  skull  of  Mr.  Langley,  char- 
red and  consumed  as  it  was,  seemed  to  show 
marks  of  violence.  It  might  have  been  from  a 
fracture  of  the  skull  or  it  might  have  been  an  acci- 


244  ,THE   SILENT   BULLET 

dent  to  his  remains  as  they  were  being  removed 
to  the  anteroom.  Again,  his  tongue  seemed  as 
though  it  was  protruding.  That  might  have  been 
natural  suffocation,  or  it  might  have  been  from 
forcible  strangulation.  So  far  I  had  nothing  but 
conjecture  to  work  on.  But  in  looking  over  the 
living-room  I  found  near  the  table,  on  the  hard- 
wood floor,  a  spot — just  one  little  round  spot. 
Now,  deductions  from  spots,  even  if  we  know 
them  to  be  blood,  must  be  made  very  carefully.  I 
did  not  know  this  to  be  a  blood-spot,  and  so  was 
very  careful  at  first. 

"Let  us  assume  it  was  a  blood-spot,  however. 
What  did  it  show?  It  was  just  a  little  regular 
round  spot,  quite  thick.  Now,  drops  of  blood 
falling  only  a  few  inches  usually  make  a  round 
spot  with  a  smooth  border.  Still  the  surface  on 
which  the  drop  falls  is  quite  as  much  a  factor 
as  the  height  from  which  it  falls.  If  the  surface 
is  rough  the  border  may  be  irregular.  But  this 
was  a  smooth  surface  and  not  absorbent.  The 
thickness  of  a  dried  blood-spot  on  a  non-absorb- 
ent surface  is  less  the  greater  the  height  from 
which  it  has  fallen.  This  was  a  thick  spot.  Now 
if  it  had  fallen,  say,  six  feet,  the  height  of  Mr. 
Langley,  the  spot  would  have  been  thin — some 
secondary  spatters  might  have  been  seen,  or  at 
least  an  irregular  edge  around  the  spot.  There- 
fore, if  it  was  a  blood-spot,  it  had  fallen  only  one 
or  two  feet.  I  ascertained  next  that  the  lower 


"SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    245 

part  of  the  body  showed  no  wounds  or  bruises 
whatever. 

"Tracks  of  blood  such  as  are  left  by  dragging 
a  bleeding  body  differ  very  greatly  from  tracks 
of  arterial  blood  which  are  left  when  the  victim 
has  strength  to  move  himself.  Continuing  my 
speculations,  supposing  it  to  be  a  blood-spot,  what 
did  it  indicate?  Clearly  that  Mr.  Langley  was 
struck  by  somebody  on  the  head  with  a  heavy 
instrument,  perhaps  in  another  part  of  the  room, 
that  he  was  choked,  that  as  the  drops  of  blood 
oozed  from  the  wound  on  his  head,  he  was 
dragged  across  the  floor,  in  the  direction  of  the 
fireplace—  " 

"But,  Professor  Kennedy,"  interrupted  Doctor 
Putnam,  "have  you  proved  that  the  spot  was  a 
blood-spot?  Might  it  not  have  been  a  paint-spot 
or  something  of  that  sort?" 

Kennedy  had  apparently  been  waiting  for  just 
such  a  question. 

"Ordinarily,  water  Has  no  effect  on  paint,'*  he 
answered.  "I  found  that  the  spot  could  be 
washed  off  with  water.  That  is  not  all.  I  have 
a  test  for  blood  that  is  so  delicately  sensitive  that 
the  blood  of  an  Egyptian  mummy  thousands  of 
years  old  will  respond  to  it.  It  was  discovered 
by  a  German  scientist,  Doctor  Uhlenhuth,  and 
was  no  longer  ago  than  last  winter  applied  in 
England  in  connection  with  the  Clapham  murder. 
The  suspected  murderer  declared  that  stains  on 


246  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

his  clothes  were  only  spatters  of  paint,  but  the 
test  proved  them  to  be  spatters  of  blood.  Walter, 
bring  in  the  cage  with  the  rabbits." 

I  opened  the  door  and  took  the  cage  from  the 
groom,  who  had  brought  it  up  from  the  stable 
and  stood  waiting  with  it  some  distance  away. 

"This  test  is  very  simple,  Doctor  Putnam," 
continued  Craig,  as  I  placed  the  cage  on  the  table 
and  Kennedy  unwrapped  the  sterilised  test-tubes. 
"A  rabbit  is  inoculated  with  human  blood,  and 
after  a  time  the  serum  that  is  taken  from  the 
rabbit  supplies  the  material  for  the  test. 

"I  will  insert  this  needle  in  one  of  these  rab- 
bits which  has  been  so  inoculated  and  will  draw 
off  some  of  the  serum,  which  I  place  in  this  test- 
tube  to  the  right.  The  other  rabbit  has  not  been 
inoculated.  I  draw  off  some  of  its  serum  and 
place  that  tube  here  on  the  left — we  will  call  that 
our  'control  tube.'  It  will  check  the  results  of 
our  tests. 

"Wrapped  up  in  this  paper  I  have  the  scrap- 
ings of  the  spot  which  I  found  on  the  floor — just 
a  few  grains  of  dark,  dried  powder.  To  show 
how  sensitive  the  test  is,  I  will  take  only  one  of 
the  smallest  of  these  minute  scrapings.  I  dis- 
solve it  in  this  third  tube  with  distilled  water.  I 
will  even  divide  it  in  half,  and  place  the  other 
half  in  this  fourth  tube. 

"Next  I  add  some  of  the  serum  of  the  uninocu- 
lated  rabbit  to  the  half  in  this  tube.  You  observe, 


"SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    247 

nothing  happens.  I  add  a  little  of  the  serum  of 
the  inoculated  rabbit  to  the  other  half  in  this  other 
tube.  Observe  how  delicate  the  test  is — " 
•  Kennedy  was  leaning  forward,  almost  oblivious 
of  the  rest  of  us  in  the  room,  talking  almost  as  if 
to  himself.  We,  too,  had  riveted  our  eyes  on  the 
tubes. 

As  he  added  the  serum  from  the  inoculated 
rabbit,  a  cloudy  milky  ring  formed  almost  im- 
mediately in  the  hitherto  colourless,  very  dilute 
blood-solution. 

"That,"  concluded  Craig,  triumphantly  holding 
the  tube  aloft,  "that  conclusively  proves  that  the 
little  round  spot  on  the  hardwood  floor  was  not 
paint,  was  not  anything  in  this  wide  world  but 
blood." 

No  one  in  the  room  said  a  word,  but  I  knew 
there  must  have  been  someone  there  who  thought 
volumes  in  the  few  minutes  that  elapsed. 

"Having  found  one  blood-spot,  I  began  to  look 
about  for  more,  but  was  able  to  find  only  two  or 
three  traces  where  spots  seemed  to  have  been. 
The  fact  is  that  the  blood-spots  had  been  appar- 
ently carefully  wiped  up.  That  is  an  easy  matter. 
Hot  water  and  salt,  or  hot  water  alone,  or  even 
cold  water,  will  make  quite  short  work  of  fresh 
blood-spots — at  least  to  all  outward  appearances. 
But  nothing  but  a  most  thorough  cleaning  can  con- 
ceal them  from  the  Uhlenhuth  test,  even  when  they 
are  apparently  wiped  out.  It  is  a  case  of  Lady 


248  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

Macbeth  over  again,  crying  in  the  face  of  modern 
science,  'Out,  out,  damned  spot.' 

"I  was  able  with  sufficient  definiteness  to  trace 
roughly  a  course  of  blood-spots  from  the  fireplace 
to  a  point  near  the  door  of  the  living-room.  But 
beyond  the  door,  in  the  hall,  nothing." 

" Still,"  interrupted  Harrington,  "to  get  back 
to  the  facts  in  the  case.  They  are  perfectly  in  ac- 
cord either  with  my  theory  of  the  cigar  or  the 
^Record's  of  spontaneous  combustion.  How  do 
you  account  for  the  facts?" 

"I  suppose  you  refer  to  the  charred  head,  the 
burned  neck,  the  upper  chest  cavity,  while  the1 
arms  and  legs  were  untouched  ?" 

"Yes,  and  then  the  body  was  found  in  the  midst 
of  combustible  furniture  that  was  not  touched. 
It  seems  to  me  that  even  the  spontaneous-com- 
bustion theory  has  considerable  support  in  spite 
of  this  very  interesting  circumstantial  evidence 
about  blood-spots.  Next  to  my  own  theory,  the 
combustion  theory  seems  most  in  harmony  with 
the  facts." 

"If  you  will  go  over  in  your  mind  all  the  points 
proved  to  have  been  discovered — not  the  added 
points  in  the  Record  story — I  think  you  will  agree 
with  me  that  mine  is  a  more  logical  interpretation 
than  spontaneous  combustion,"  reasoned  Craig. 
"Hear  me  out  and  you  will  see  that  the  facts  are 
more  in  harmony  with  my  less  fanciful  explana- 
tion. No,  someone  struck  Lewis  Langley  dowT 


" SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    249 

either  in  passion  or  in  cold  blood,  and  then,  see- 
ing what  he  had  done,  made  a  desperate  effort 
to  destroy  the  evidence  of  violence.  Consider  my 
next  discovery." 

Kennedy  placed  the  five  glasses  which  I  had 
carefully  sealed  and  labelled  on  the  table  before 
us. 

"The  next  step,"  he  said,  "was  to  find  out 
whether  any  articles  of  clothing  in  the  house 
showed  marks  that  might  be  suspected  of  being 
blood-spots.  And  here  I  must  beg  the  pardon  of 
all  in  the  room  for  intruding  in  their  private 
wardrobes.  But  in  this  crisis  it  was  absolutely 
necessary,  and  under  such  circumstances  I  never 
let  ceremony  stand  before  justice. 

"In  these  five  glasses  on  the  table  I  have  the 
washings  of  spots  from  the  clothing  worn  by 
Tom,  Mr.  James  Langley,  Junior,  Harrington 
Brown,  and  Doctor  Putnam.  I  am  not  going  to 
tell  you  which  is  which — indeed  I  merely  have 
them  marked,  and  I  do  not  know  them  myself. 
But  Mr.  Jameson  has  the  marks  with  the  names 
opposite  on  a  piece  of  paper  in  his  pocket.  I 
am  simply  going  to  proceed  with  the  tests  to  see 
if  any  of  the  stains  on  the  coats  were  of  blood." 

Just  then  Doctor  Putnam  interposed.  "One 
question,  Professor  Kennedy.  It  is  a  compara- 
tively easy  thing  to  recognise  a  blood-stain,  but 
it  is  difficult,  usually  impossible,  to  tell  whether 
the  blood  is  that  of  a  man  or  of  an  animal.  I 


250  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

recall  that  we  were  all  in  our  hunting-jackets  that 
day,  had  been  all  day.  Now,  in  the  morning  there 
had  been  an  operation  on  one  of  the  horses  at  the 
stable,  and  I  assisted  the  veterinary  from  town. 
I  may  have  got  a  spot  or  two  of  blood  on  my  coat 
from  that  operation.  Do  I  understand  that  this 
test  would  show  that?" 

"No,"  replied  Craig,  "this  test  would  not  show 
that.  Other  tests  would,  but  not  this.  But  if 
the  spot  of  human  blood  were  less  than  the  size 
of  a  pin-head,  it  would  show — it  would  show  if 
the  spot  contained  even  so  little  as  one  twenty- 
thousandth  of  a  gram  of  albumin.  Blood  from 
a  horse,  a  deer,  a  sheep,  a  pig,  a  dog,  could  be 
obtained,  but  when  the  test  was  applied  the 
liquid  in  which  they  were  diluted  would  remain 
clear.  No  white  precipitin,  as  it  is  called,  would 
form.  But  let  human  blood,  ever  so  diluted,  be 
added  to  the  serum  of  the  inoculated  rabbit,  and 
the  test  is  absolute." 

A  death-like  silence  seemed  to  pervade  the 
iroom.  Kennedy  slowly  and  deliberately  began 
to  test  the  contents  of  the  glasses.  Dropping  into 
each,  as  he  broke  the  seal,  some  of  the  serum  of 
the  rabbit,  he  waited  a  moment  to  see  if  any 
change  occurred. 

It  was  thrilling.  I  think  no  one  could  have 
gone  through  that  fifteen  minutes  without  having 
it  indelibly  impressed  on  his  memory.  I  recall 
thinking  as  Kennedy  took  each  glass,  "Which  is  it 


1  'SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    251 

to  be,  guilt  or  innocence,  life  or  death?"  Could 
it  be  possible  that  a  man's  life  might  hang  on  such 
a  slender  thread?  I  knew  Kennedy  was  too 
accurate  and  serious  to  deceive  us.  It  was  not 
only  possible,  it  was  actually  a  fact. 

The  first  glass  showed  no  reaction.  Someone 
had  been  vindicated. 

The  second  was  neutral  likewise — another  per- 
son in  the  room  had  been  proved  innocent. 

The  third — no  change.  Science  had  released  a 
third. 

The  fourth— 

Almost  it  seemed  as  if  the  record  in  my  pocket 
burned — spontaneously — so  intense  was  my  feel- 
ing. There  in  the  glass  was  that  fatal,  telltale 
white  precipitate. 

"My  God,  it's  the  milk  ring!"  whispered  Tom 
close  to  my  ear. 

Hastily  Kennedy  dropped  the  serum  into  the 
fifth.  It  remained  as  clear  as  crystal. 

My  hand  trembled  as  it  touched  the  envelope 
containing  my  record  of  the  names. 

"The  person  who  wore  the  coat  with  that  blood- 
stain on  it,"  declared  Kennedy  solemnly,  "was 
the  person  who  struck  Lewis  Langley  down,  who 
choked  him  and  then  dragged  his  scarcely  dead 
body  across  the  floor  and  obliterated  the  marks- 
of  violence  in  the  blazing  log  fire.  Jameson, 
whose  name  is  opposite  the  sign  on  this  glass?" 

I  could  scarcely  tear  the  seal  to  look  at  the 


252  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

paper  in  the  envelope.  At  last  I  unfolded  it,  and 
my  eye  fell  on  the  name  opposite  the  fatal  sign. 
But  my  mouth  was  dry,  and  my  tongue  refused 
to  move.  It  was  too  much  like  reading  a  death- 
sentence.  With  my  finger  on  the  name  I  faltered 
an  instant. 

Tom  leaned  over  my  shoulder  and  read  it  to 
himself.  "For  Heaven's  sake,  Jameson,"  he 
cried,  "let  the  ladies  retire  before  you  read  the 
name." 

"It's  not  necessary,"  said  a  thick  voice.  "We 
quarrelled  over  the  estate.  My  share's  mort- 
gaged up  to  the  limit,  and  Lewis  refused  to  lend 
me  more  even  until  I  could  get  Isabelle  happily 
married.  Now  Lewis's  goes  to  an  outsider — 
Harrington,  boy,  take  care  of  Isabelle,  fortune 
or  no  fortune.  Good — " 

Someone  seized  James  Langley's  arm  as  he 
pressed  an  automatic  revolver  to  his  temple.  He 
reeled  like  a  drunken  man  and  dropped  the  gun 
on  the  floor  with  an  oath. 

"Beaten  again,"  he  muttered.  "Forgot  to 
move  the  ratchet  from  'safety'  to  'fire.'  " 

Like  a  madman  he  wrenched  himself  loose  from 
us,  sprang  through  the  door,  and  darted  up- 
stairs. "I'll  show  you  some  combustion!"  he 
shouted  back  fiercely. 

Kennedy  was  after  him  like  a  flash.  "The 
will! "he  cried. 

We  literally  tore  the  door  off  its  hinges  and 


"SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION"    253 

burst  into  James  Langley's  room.  He  was  bend- 
ing eagerly  over  the  fireplace.  Kennedy  made  a 
flying  leap  at  him.  Just  enough  of  the  will  was 
left  unburned  to  be  admitted  to  probate. 


IX 

THE  TERROR  IN  THE  AIR 

"THERE'S  something  queer  about  these  aeroplane 
accidents  at  Belmore  Park, ' '  mused  Kennedy,  one 
evening,  as  his  eye  caught  a  big  headline  in  the 
last  edition  of  the  Star,  which  I  had  brought  up- 
town with  me. 

"Queer!"  I  echoed.  "Unfortunate,  terrible, 
but  hardly  queer.  Why,  it  is  a  common  saying 
among  the  aeronauts  that  if  they  keep  at  it  long 
enough  they  will  all  lose  their  lives." 

"Yes,  I  know  that,"  rejoined  Kennedy;  "but, 
Walter,  have  you  noticed  that  all  these  accidents 
have  happened  to  Norton's  new  gyroscope  ma- 
chines?" 

"Well,  what  of  that!"  I  replied.  "Isn't  it  just 
barely  possible  that  Norton  is  on  the  wrong  track 
in  applying  the  gyroscope  to  an  aeroplane!  I 
can't  say  I  know  much  about  either  the  gyroscope 
or  the  aeroplane,  but  from  what  I  hear  the  fellows 
at  the  office  say  it  would  seem  to  me  that  the 
gyroscope  is  a  pretty  good  thing  to  keep  off  an 
aeroplane,  not  to  put  on  it." 

"Why!"  asked  Kennedy  blandly. 

"Well,  it  seems  to  me,  from  what  the  experts 

254 


THE   TERROR   IN   THE   AIR        255 

say,  that  anything  which  tends  to  keep  your  ma- 
chine in  one  position  is  just  what  you  don't  want 
in  an  aeroplane.  What  surprises  them,  they  say, 
is  that  the  thing  seems  to  work  so  well  up  to  a 
certain  point — that  the  accidents  don't  happen 
sooner.  Why,  our  man  on  the  aviation  field  tells 
me  that  when  that  poor  fellow  Browne  was  killed 
he  had  all  but  succeeded  in  bringing  his  machine 
to  a  dead  stop  in  the  air.  In  other  words,  he 
would  have  won  the  Brooks  Prize  for  perfect  mo- 
tionlessness  in  one  place.  And  then  Herrick,  the 
day  before,  was  going  about  seventy  miles  an 
hour  when  he  collapsed.  They  said  it  was  heart 
failure.  But  to-night  another  expert  says  in  the 
Star — here,  I'll  read  it:  'The  real  cause  was  car- 
bonic-acid-gas poisoning  due  to  the  pressure  on 
the  mouth  from  driving  fast  through  the  air,  and 
the  consequent  inability  to  expel  the  poisoned 
air  which  had  been  breathed.  Air  once  breathed 
is  practically  carbonic-acid-gas.  When  one  is 
passing  rapidly  through  the  air  this  carbonic- 
acid-gas  is  pushed  back  into  the  lungs,  and  only 
a  little  can  get  away  because  of  the  rush  of  air 
pressure  into  the  mouth.  So  it  is  rebreathed,  and 
the  result  is  gradual  carbonic-acid-gas  poisoning, 
which  produces  a  kind  of  narcotic  sleep.'  ' 

"Then  it  wasn't  the  gyroscope  in  that  case?" 
said  Kennedy  with  a  rising  inflection. 
"No,"  I  admitted  reluctantly,  "perhaps  not." 
I  could  see  that  I  had  been  rash  in  talking  so 


256  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

long.  Kennedy  had  only  been  sounding  me  to 
see  what  the  newspapers  thought  of  it.  His  next 
remark  was  characteristic. 

"Norton  has  asked  me  to  look  into  the  thing," 
he  said  quietly.  "If  his  invention  is  a  failure, 
he  is  a  ruined  man.  All  his  money  is  in  it,  he  is 
suing  a  man  for  infringing  on  his  patent,  and  he 
is  liable  for  damages  to  the  heirs,  according  to 
his  agreement  with  Browne  and  Herrick.  I  have 
known  Norton  some  time;  in  fact,  he  worked  out 
his  ideas  at  the  university  physical  laboratory. 
I  have  flown  in  his  machine,  and  it  is  the  most 
marvellous  biplane  I  ever  saw.  Walter,  I  want 
you  to  get  a  Belmore  Park  assignment  from  the 
Star  and  go  out  to  the  aviation  meet  with  me  to- 
morrow. I'll  take  you  on  the  field,  around  the 
machines — you  can  get  enough  local  colour  to  do 
a  dozen  Star  specials  later  on.  I  may  add  that 
devising  a  flying-machine  capable  of  remaining 
stationary  in  the  air  means  a  revolution  that  will 
relegate  all  other  machines  to  the  scrap-heap. 
From  a  military  point  of  view  it  is  the  one  thing 
necessary  to  make  the  aeroplane  the  superior  in 
every  respect  to  the  dirigible. " 

The  regular  contests  did  not  begin  until  the 
afternoon,  but  Kennedy  and  I  decided  to  make  a 
day  of  it,  and  early  the  next  morning  we  were 
speeding  out  to  the  park  where  the  flights  were 
being  held. 

We  found  Charles  Norton,  the  inventor,  anz- 


THE   TEEROK   IN   THE   AIR        257 

iously  at  work  with  his  mechanicians  in  the  big 
temporary  shed  that  had  been  accorded  him,  and 
was  dignified  with  the  name  of  hangar. 

' 'I  knew  you  would  come,  Professor,"  he  ex- 
claimed, running  forward  to  meet  us. 

' '  Of  course, ' '  echoed  Kennedy.  t '  I  'm  too  much 
interested  in  this  invention  of  yours  not  to  help 
you,  Norton.  You  know  what  I've  always 
thought  of  it — I've  told  you  often  that  it  is  the 
most  important  advance  since  the  original  discov- 
ery by  the  Wrights  that  the  aeroplane  could  be 
balanced  by  warping  the  planes." 

"I'm  just  fixing  up  my  third  machine,"  said 
Norton.  "If  anything  happens  to  it,  I  shall  lose 
the  prize,  at  least  as  far  as  this  meet  is  concerned, 
for  I  don 't  believe  I  shall  get  my  fourth  and  new- 
est model  from  the  makers  in  time.  Anyhow,  if 
I  did  I  couldn't  pay  for  it — I  am  ruined,  if  I  don't 
win  that  twenty-five-thousand-dollar  Brooks 
Prize.  And,  besides,  a  couple  of  army  men  are 
coming  to  inspect  my  aeroplane  and  report  to  the 
War  Department  on  it.  I'd  have  stood  a  good 
chance  of  selling  it,  I  think,  if  my  flights  here  had 
been  like  the  trials  you  saw.  But,  Kennedy,"  he 
added,  and  his  face  was  drawn  and  tragic,  "I'd 
drop  the  whole  thing  if  I  didn  't  know  I  was  right. 
Two  men  dead — think  of  it.  Why,  even  the  news- 
papers are  beginning  to  call  me  a  cold,  heartless, 
scientific  crank  to  keep  on.  But  I'll  show  them — 
this  afternoon  I'm  going  to  fly  myself.  I'm  not 


258  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

afraid  to  go  anywhere  I  send  my  men.  I'll  die 
before  I'll  admit  I'm  beaten." 

It  was  easy  to  see  why  Kennedy  was  fascinated 
by  a  man  of  Norton's  type.  Anyone  would  have 
been.  It  was  not  foolhardiness.  It  was  dogged 
determination,  faith  in  himself  and  in  his  own 
ability  to  triumph  over  every  obstacle. 

.We  now  slowly  entered  the  shed  where  two  men 
were  working  over  Norton's  biplane.  One  of  the 
men  was  a  Frenchman,  Jaurette,  who  had  worked 
with  Farman,  a  silent,  dark-browed,  weather- 
beaten  fellow  with  a  sort  of  sullen  politeness. 
The  other  man  was  an  American,  Roy  Sinclair,  a 
tall,  lithe,  wiry  chap  with  a  seamed  and  furrowed 
face  and  a  loose-jointed  but  very  deft  manner 
which  marked  him  a  born  bird-man.  Norton's 
third  aviator,  Humphreys,  who  was  not  to  fly  that 
day,  much  to  his  relief,  was  reading  a  paper  in  the 
back  of  the  shed. 

We  were  introduced  to  him,  and  he  seemed  to 
be  a  very  companionable  sort  of  fellow,  though 
not  given  to  talking. 

"Mr.  Norton,"  he  said,  after  the  introduction, 
"there's  quite  an  account  of  your  injunction 
against  Delanne  in  this  paper.  It  doesn't  seem 
to  be  very  friendly,"  he  added,  indicating  the 
article. 

Norton  read  it  and  frowned.  "Humph!  I'll 
show  them  yet  that  my  application  of  the  gyro- 
scope is  patentable.  Delanne  will  put  me  into 


THE   TERROR  IN   THE   AIR        259 

'interference'  in  the  patent  office,  as  the  lawyers 
call  it,  will  he?  Well,  I  filed  a  'caveat'  over  a 
year  and  a  half  ago.  If  I'm  wrong,  he's  wrong, 
and  all  gyroscope  patents  are  wrong,  and  if  I'm 
right,  by  George,  I'm  first  in  the  field.  That's 
so,  isn't  it?"  he  appealed  to  Kennedy. 

Kennedy  shrugged  his  shoulders  non-commit- 
tally,  as  if  he  had  never  heard  of  the  patent  office 
or  the  gyroscope  in  his  life.  The  men  were  lis- 
tening, whether  or  not  from  loyalty  I  could  not 
tell. 

"Let  us  see  your  gyroplane,  I  mean  aeroscope 
— whatever  it  is  you  call  it,"  asked  Kennedy. 

Norton  took  the  cue.  "Now  you  newspaper 
men  are  the  first  that  I've  allowed  in  here,"  he 
said.  "Can  I  trust  your  word  of  honour  not  to 
publish  a  line  except  such  as  I  0.  K.  after  you 
write  it?" 

We  promised. 

As  Norton  directed,  the  mechanicians  wheeled 
the  aeroplane  out  on  the  field  in  front  of  the  shed. 
No  one  was  about. 

"Now  this  is  the  gyroscope,"  began  Norton, 
pointing  out  a  thing  encased  in  an  aluminum 
sheath,  which  weighed,  all  told,  perhaps  fourteen 
or  fifteen  pounds.  "You  see,  the  gyroscope  is 
really  a  flywheel  mounted  on  gimbals  and  can  turn 
on  any  of  its  axes  so  that  it  can  assume  any  angle 
in  space.  When  it's  at  rest  like  this  you  can 
turn  it  easily.  But  when  set  revolving  it  tends 


260  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

to  persist  always  in  the  plane  in  which,  it  was 
started  rotating." 

I  took  hold  6f  it,  and  it  did  turn  readily  in  any 
direction.  I  could  feel  the  heavy  little  flywheel 
inside. 

"  There  is  a  pretty  high  vacuum  in  that  alumi- 
num case, ' '  went  on  Norton.  ' '  There 's  very  little 
friction  on  that  account.  The  power  to  rotate 
the  flywheel  is  obtained  from  this  little  dynamo 
here,  run  by  the  gas-engine  which  also  turns  the 
propellers  of  the  aeroplane." 

"But  suppose  the  engine  stops,  how  about  the 
gyroscope?"  I  asked  sceptically. 

"It  will  go  right  on  for  several  minutes.  You 
know,  the  Brennan  monorail  car  will  stand  up 
some  time  after  the  power  is  shut  off.  And  I 
carry  a  small  storage-battery  that  will  run  it  for 
some  time,  too.  That's  all  been  guarded 
against." 

Jaurette  cranked  the  engine,  a  seven-cylindered 
affair,  with  the  cylinders  sticking  out  like  the 
spokes  of  a  wheel  without  a  rim.  The  propellers 
turned  so  fast  that  I  could  not  see  the  blades — 
turned  with  that  strong,  steady,  fierce  droning 
buzz  that  can  be  heard  a  long  distance  and  which 
is  a  thrilling  sound  to  hear.  Norton  reached 
over  and  attached  the  little  dynamo,  at  the  same 
time  setting  the  gyroscope  at  its  proper  angle  and 
starting  it. 

* '  This  is  the  mechanical  brain  of  my  new  flier, ' ' 


THE   TERROR   IN   THE   AIR        261 

he  remarked,  patting  the  aluminum  case  lovingly. 
''You  can  look  in  through  this  little  window  in 
the  case  and  see  the  flywheel  inside  revolving — 
ten  thousand  revolutions  a  minute.  Press  down 
on  the  gyroscope,"  he  shouted  to  me. 

As  I  placed  both  hands  on  the  case  of  the  ap- 
parently frail  little  instrument,  he  added,  "You 
remember  how  easily  you  moved  it  just  a  moment 
ago." 

I  pressed  down  with  all  my  might.  Then  I  lit- 
erally raised  myself  off  my  feet,  and  my  whole 
weight  was  on  the  gyroscope.  That  uncanny 
little  instrument  seemed  to  resent — yes,  that's 
the  word,  resent — my  touch.  It  was  almost  hu- 
man in  the  resentment,  too.  Far  from  yielding 
to  me,  it  actually  rose  on  the  side  I  was  pressing 
down! 

The  men  who  were  watching  me  laughed  at  the 
puzzled  look  on  my  face. 

I  took  my  hands  off,  and  the  gyroscope  lei- 
surely and  nonchalantly  went  back  to  its  original 
position. 

"That's  the  property  we  use,  applied  to  the 
rudder  and  the  ailerons — those  flat  planes  be- 
tween the  large  main  planes.  That  gives  auto- 
matic stability  to  the  machine,"  continued  Norton. 
"I'm  not  going  to  explain  how  it  is  done — it  is 
in  the  combination  of  the  various  parts  that  I 
have  discovered  the  basic  principle,  and  I'm  not 
going  to  talk  about  it  till  the  thing  is  settled  by 


262  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

the  courts.  But  it  is  there,  and  the  court  will 
see  it,  and  I'll  prove  that  Delanne  is  a  fraud — a 
fraud  when  he  says  that  my  combination  isn't 
patentable  and  isn't  practicable  even  at  that! 
The  truth  is  that  his  device  as  it  stands  isn't 
practicable,  and,  besides,  if  he  makes  it  so  it  in- 
fringes on  mine.  Would  you  like  to  take  a  flight 
with  me?" 

I  looked  at  Kennedy,  and  a  vision  of  the  wreck- 
age of  the  two  previous  accidents,  as  the  Star 
photographer  had  snapped  them,  flashed  across 
my  mind.  But  Kennedy  was  too  quick  for  me. 

"Yes,"  he  answered.  "A  short  flight.  No 
stunts." 

We  took  our  seats  by  Norton,  I,  at  least,  with 
some  misgiving.  Gently  the  machine  rose  into 
the  air.  The  sensation  was  delightful.  The 
fresh  air  of  the  morning  came  with  a  stinging 
rush  to  my  face.  Below  I  could  see  the  earth 
sweeping  past  as  if  it  were  a  moving-picture  film. 
Above  the  continuous  roar  of  the  engine  and  pro- 
peller Norton  indicated  to  Kennedy  the  automatic 
balancing  of  the  gyroscope  as  it  bent  the  ailerons. 

"Could  you  fly  in  this  machine  without  the 
gyroscope  at  all!"  yelled  Kennedy.  The  noise 
was  deafening,  conversation  almost  impossible. 
Though  sitting  side  by  side  he  had  to  repeat  his 
remark  twice  to  Norton. 

"Yes,"  called  back  Norton.  Reaching  back  of 
him,  he  pointed  out  the  way  to  detach  the  gyro- 


THE    TERROR   IN   THE   AIR        263 

scope  and  put  a  sort  of  brake  on  it  that  stopped 
its  revolutions  almost  instantly.  "It's  a  ticklish 
job  to  change  in  the  air,"  he  shouted.  "It  can 
be  done,  but  it's  safer  to  land  and  do  it." 

The  flight  was  soon  over,  and  we  stood  admir- 
ing the  machine  while  Norton  expatiated  on  the 
compactness  of  his  little  dynamo. 

"What  have  you  done  with  the  wrecks  of  the 
other  machines?"  inquired  Kennedy  at  length. 

"They  are  stored  in  a  shed  down  near  the  rail- 
road station.  They  are  just  a  mass  of  junk, 
though  there  are  some  parts  that  I  can  use,  so 
I'll  ship  them  back  to  the  factory." 

"Might  I  have  a  look  at  them?" 

"Surely.  I'll  give  you  the  key.  Sorry  I  can't 
go  myself,  but  I  want  to  be  sure  everything  is  all 
right  for  my  flight  this  afternoon." 

It  was  a  long  walk  over  to  the  shed  near  the 
station,  and,  together  with  our  examination  of  the 
wrecked  machines,  it  took  us  the  rest  of  the  morn- 
ing. Craig  carefully  turned  over  the  wreckage. 
It  seemed  a  hopeless  quest  to  me,  but  I  fancied 
that  to  him  it  merely  presented  new  problems  for 
his  deductive  and  scientific  mind. 

"These  gyroscopes  are  out  of  business  for 
good,"  he  remarked  as  he  glanced  at  the  dented 
and  battered  aluminum  cases.  "But  there 
doesn't  seem  to  be  anything  wrong  with  them  ex- 
cept what  would  naturally  happen  in  such  acci- 
dents." 


264  ,TfiE   SILENT  BULLET 

For  my  part  I  felt  a  sort  of  awe  at  the  mags  of 
wreckage  in  which  Browne  and  Herrick  had  been 
killed.  It  was  to  me  more  than  a  tangled  mass  of 
wires  and  splinters.  Two  human  lives  had  been 
snuffed  out  in  it. 

"The  engines  are  a  mass  of  scrap;  see  how  the 
cylinders  are  bent  and  twisted,"  remarked  Ken- 
nedy with  great  interest.  "The  gasoline-tank  is 
intact,  but  dented  out  of  shape.  No  explosion 
there.  And  look  at  this  dynamo.  Why,  the  wires 
in  it  are  actually  fused  together.  The  insulation 
has  been  completely  burned  off.  I  wonder  what 
could  have  caused  that  I ' ' 

Kennedy  continued  to  regard  the  tangled  mass 
thoughtfully  for  some  time,  then  locked  the  door, 
and  we  strolled  back  to  the  grand  stand  on  our 
side  of  the  field.  Already  the  crowd  had  begun 
to  collect.  Across  the  field  we  could  see  the  vari- 
ous machines  in  front  of  their  hangars  with  the 
men  working  on  them.  The  buzz  of  the  engines 
was  wafted  across  by  the  light  summer  breeze  as 
if  a  thousand  cicadas  had  broken  loose  to  predict 
warm  weather. 

Two  machines  were  already  in  flight,  a  little 
yellow  Demoiselle,  scurrying  around  close  to  the 
earth  like  a  frightened  hen,  and  a  Bleriot,  high 
overhead,  making  slow  and  graceful  turns  like  a 
huge  bird. 

Kennedy  and  I  stopped  before  the  little  wire- 
less telegraph  station  of  the  signal  corps  in  front 


THE   TERROR  IN   THE   AIR        263 

of  the  grand  stand  and  watched  the  operator 
working  over  his  instruments. 

" There  it  is  again/'  muttered  the  operator 
angrily. 

"What's  the  matter?"  asked  Kennedy.  "Am- 
ateurs interfering  with  you?" 

The  man  nodded  a  reply,  shaking  his  head  with 
the  telephone-like  receiver,  viciously.  He  con- 
tinued to  adjust  his  apparatus. 

' '  Confound  it ! "  he  exclaimed.  ' '  Yes,  that  fel- 
low has  been  jamming  me  for  the  past  two  days 
off  and  on,  every  time  I  get  ready  to  send  or  re- 
ceive a  message.  Williams  is  going  up  with  a 
Wright  machine  equipped  with  wireless  appara- 
tus in  a  minute,  and  this  fellow  won't  get  out  of 
the  way.  By  Jove,  though,  those  are  powerful 
impulses  of  his.  Hear  that  crackling?  I've 
never  been  interfered  with  so  in  my  experience. 
Touch  that  screen  door  with  your  knife." 

Kennedy  did  so,  and  elicited  large  sparks  with 
quite  a  tingle  of  a  shock. 

"Yesterday  and  the  day  before  it  was  so  bad 
we  had  to  give  up  attempting  to  communicate 
with  Williams, ' '  continued  the  operator.  * '  It  was 
worse  than  trying  to  work  in  a  thunder-shower. 
That's  the  time  we  get  our  troubles,  when  the  air 
is  overcharged  with  electricity,  as  it  is  now." 

"That's  interesting,"  remarked  Kennedy. 

"Interesting?"  flashed  back  the  operator, 
angrily  noting  the  condition  in  his  "log  book." 


266  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"Maybe  it  is,  but  I  call  it  darned  mean.  It's  al- 
most like  trying  to  work  in  a  power  station." 

"Indeed?"  queried  Kennedy.  "I  beg  your 
pardon — I  was  only  looking  at  it  from  the  purely 
scientific  point  of  view.  Who  is  it,  do  you  sup- 
pose?" 

"How  do  I  know?  Some  amateur,  I  guess. 
No  professional  would  butt  in  this  way." 

Kennedy  took  a  leaf  out  of  his  note-book  and 
wrote  a  short  message  which  he  gave  to  a  boy 
to  deliver  to  Norton. 

"Detach  your  gyroscope  and  dynamo,"  it  read. 
"Leave  them  in  the  hangar.  Fly  without  them 
this  afternoon,  and  see  what  happens.  No  use  to 
try  for  the  prize  to-day.  Kennedy." 

We  sauntered  out  on  the  open  part  of  the  field, 
back  of  the  fence  and  to  the  side  of  the  stands,  and 
watched  the  fliers  for  a  few  moments.  Three 
were  in  the  air  now,  and  I  could  see  Norton  and 
his  men  getting  ready. 

The  boy  with  the  message  was  going  rapidly 
across  the  field.  Kennedy  was  impatiently 
watching  him.  It  was  too  far  off  to  see  just  what 
they  were  doing,  but  as  Norton  seemed  to  get 
down  out  of  his  seat  in  the  aeroplane  when  the 
boy  arrived,  and  it  was  wheeled  back  into  the 
shed,  I  gathered  that  he  was  detaching  the  gyro- 
scope and  was  going  to  make  the  flight  without 
it,  as  Kennedy  had  requested. 

In  a  few  minutes  it  was  again  wheeled  out. 


THE   TERROR   IN   THE   AIR        267 

The  crowd,  which  had  been  waiting  especially  to 
see  Norton,  applauded. 

"Come,  Walter,"  exclaimed  Kennedy,  "let's 
go  up  there  on  the  roof  of  the  stand  where  we  can 
see  better.  There's  a  platform  and  railing,  I 
see." 

His  pass  allowed  him  to  go  anywhere  on  the 
field,  so  in  a  few  moments  we  were  up  on  the 
roof. 

It  was  a  fascinating  vantage-point,  and  I  was 
so  deeply  engrossed  between  watching  the  crowd 
below,  the  bird-men  in  the  air,  and  the  machines 
waiting  across  the  field  that  I  totally  neglected  to 
notice  what  Kennedy  was  doing.  When  I  did,  I 
saw  that  he  had  deliberately  turned  his  back  on 
the  aviation  field,  and  was  anxiously  scanning  the 
country  back  of  us. 

* '  What  are  you  looking  f  or  ? "  I  asked.  '  *  Turn 
around.  I  think  Norton  is  just  about  to  fly." 

4 '  Watch  him  then, ' '  answered  Craig.  *  *  Tell  me 
when  he  gets  in  the  air. ' ' 

Just  then  Norton's  aeroplane  rose  gently  from 
the  field.  A  wild  shout  of  applause  came  from 
the  people  below  us,  at  the  heroism  of  the  man 
who  dared  to  fly  this  new  and  apparently  fated 
machine.  It  was  succeeded  by  a  breathless, 
deathly  calm,  as  if  after  the  first  burst  of  enthu- 
siasm the  crowd  had  suddenly  realised  the  danger 
of  the  intrepid  aviator.  Would  Norton  add  a 
third  to  the  fatalities  of  the  meet? 


268  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

Suddenly  Kennedy  jerked  my  arm.  "Walter, 
look  over  there  across  the  road  back  of  us — at 
the  old  weather-beaten  barn.  I  mean  the  one  next 
to  that  yellow  house.  What  do  you  see?" 

"Nothing,  except  that  on  the  peak  of  the  roof 
there  is  a  pole  that  looks  like  the  short  stub  of  a 
small  wireless  mast.  I  should  say  there  was  a 
boy  connected  with  that  barn,  a  boy  who  has  read 
a  book  on  wireless  for  beginners. ' ' 

"Maybe,"  said  Kennedy.  "But  is  that  all  you 
see?  Look  up  in  the  little  window  of  the  gable, 
the  one  with  the  closed  shutter. " 

I  looked  carefully.  "It  seems  to  me  that  I  saw 
a  gleam  of  something  bright  at  the  top  of  the  shut- 
ter, Craig,"  I  ventured.  "A  spark  or  a  flash." 

"It  must  be  a  bright  spark,  for  the  sun  is  shin- 
ing brightly,"  mused  Craig. 

"Oh,  maybe  it's  the  small  boy  with  a  looking- 
glass.  I  can  remember  when  I  used  to  get  be- 
hind such  a  window  and  shine  a  glass  into  the 
^darkened  room  of  my  neighbours  across  the 
street." 

I  had  really  said  that  half  in  raillery,  for  I  was 
at  a  loss  to  account  in  any  other  way  for  the  light, 
but  I  was  surprised  to  see  how  eagerly  Craig  ac- 
cepted it. 

"Perhaps  you  are  right,  in  a  way,"  he  as- 
sented. "I  guess  it  isn't  a  spark,  after  all.  Yes, 
it  must  be  the  reflection  of  the  sun  on  a  piece  of 
glass — the  angles  are  just  about  right  for  it. 


THE   TERROR  IN  THE  AIR        269' 

Anyhow  it  caught  my  eye.  Still,  I  believe  that 
barn  will  bear  watching." 

Whatever  his  suspicions,  Craig  kept  them  to 
himself,  and  descended.  At  the  same  time  Nor- 
ton gently  dropped  back  to  earth  in  front  of  his 
hangar,  not  ten  feet  from  the  spot  where  he 
started.  The  applause  was  deafening,  as  the  ma- 
chine was  again  wheeled  into  the  shed  safely. 

Kennedy  and  I  pushed  through  the  crowd  to 
the  wireless  operator. 

" How's  she  working?"  inquired  Craig. 

"Rotten,"  replied  the  operator  sullenly.  "It 
was  worse  than  ever  about  five  minutes  ago.  It's 
much  better  now,  almost  normal  again." 

Just  then  the  messenger-boy,  who  had  been 
hunting  through  the  crowd  for  us,  handed  Ken- 
nedy a  note.  It  was  merely  a  scrawl  from  Nor- 
ton: 

"Everything  seems  fine.  Am  going  to  try  her  next 
With  the  gyroscope.  NORTON." 

"Boy,"  exclaimed  Craig,  "has  Mr.  Norton  a 
telephone?" 

"No,  sir,  only  that  hangar  at  the  end  has  a 
telephone." 

"Well,  you  run  across  that  field  as  fast  as  your 
legs  can  carry  you  and  tell  him  if  he  values  his 
life  not  to  do  it." 

"Not  to  do  what,  sir?" 


S70  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"Don't  stand  there,  youngster.  Run!  Tell 
him  not  to  fly  with  that  gyroscope.  There's  a 
five-spot  in  it  if  you  get  over  there  before  he 
starts." 

Even  as  he  spoke  the  Norton  aeroplane  was 
wheeled  out  again.  In  a  minute  Norton  had 
climbed  up  into  his  seat  and  was  testing  the  lev- 
ers. 

Would  the  boy  reach  him  in  time  I  He  was  half 
across  the  field,  waving  his  arms  like  mad.  But 
apparently  Norton  and  his  men  were  too  en- 
grossed in  their  machine  to  pay  attention. 

"Good  heavens!"  exclaimed  Craig.  "He's 
going  to  try  it.  Run,  boy,  run!"  he  cried,  al- 
though the  boy  was  now  far  out  of  hearing. 

Across  the  field  we  could  hear  now  the  quick 
Staccato  chug-chug  of  the  engine.  Slowly  Nor- 
ton's aeroplane,  this  time  really  equipped  with 
the  gyroscope,  rose  from  the  field  and  circled  over 
toward  us.  Craig  frantically  signalled  to  him  to 
come  down,  but  of  course  Norton  could  not  have 
seen  him  in  the  crowd.  As  for  the  crowd,  they 
looked  askance  at  Kennedy,  as  if  he  had  taken 
leave  of  his  senses. 

I  heard  the  wireless  operator  cursing  the  way 
his  receiver  was  acting. 

Higher  and  higher  Norton  went  in  one  spiral 
after  another,  those  spirals  which  his  gyroscope 
had  already  made  famous. 

The  man  with  the  megaphone  in  front  of  the 


THE   TERROR  IN   THE   AIR        271 

judge's  stand  announced  in  hollow  tones  that  Mr. 
Norton  had  given  notice  that  he  would  try  for  the 
Brooks  Prize  for  stationary  equilibrium. 

Kennedy  and  I  stood  speechless,  helpless,  ap- 
palled. 

Slower  and  slower  went  the  aeroplane.  It 
seemed  to  hover  just  like  the  big  mechanical  bird 
that  it  was. 

Kennedy  was  anxiously  watching  the  judges 
with  one  eye  and  Norton  with  the  other.  A  few 
in  the  crowd  could  no  longer  restrain  their  ap- 
plause. I  remember  that  the  wireless  back  of  us 
was  spluttering  and  crackling  like  mad. 

All  of  a  sudden  a  groan  swept  over  the  crowd. 
Something  was  wrong  with  Norton.  His  aero- 
plane was  swooping  downward  at  a  terrific  rate. 
Would  he  be  able  to  control  it!  I  held  my  breath 
and  gripped  Kennedy  by  the  arm.  Down,  down 
came  Norton,  frantically  fighting  by  main 
strength,  it  seemed  to  me,  to  warp  the  planes  so 
that  their  surface  might  catch  the  air  and  check 
his  descent. 

"He's  trying  to  detach  the  gyroscope,"  whis- 
pered Craig  hoarsely. 

The  football  helmet  which  Norton  wore  blew 
off  and  fell  more  rapidly  than  the  plane.  I  shut 
my  eyes.  But  Kennedy's  next  exclamation 
caused  me  quickly  to  open  them  again. 

"He'll  make  it,  after  all!" 

Somehow  Norton  had  regained  partial  control 


272  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

of  his  machine,  but  it  was  still  swooping  down 
at  a  tremendous  pace  toward  the  level  centre  of 
the  field. 

There  was  a  crash  as  it  struck  the  ground  in  a 
cloud  of  dust. 

With  a  leap  Kennedy  had  cleared  the  fence  and 
was  running  toward  Norton.  Two  men  from  the 
judge's  stand  were  ahead  of  us,  but  except  for 
them  we  were  the  first  to  reach  him.  The  men 
were  tearing  frantically  at  the  tangled  frame- 
work, trying  to  lift  it  off  Norton,  who  lay  pale 
and  motionless,  pinned  under  it.  The  machine 
was  not  so  badly  damaged,  after  all,  but  that  to- 
gether we  could  lift  it  bodily  off  him. 

A  doctor  ran  out  from  the  crowd  and  hastily 
put  his  ear  to  Norton's  chest.  No  one  spoke,  but 
we  all  scanned  the  doctor's  face  anxiously. 

"Just  stunned — he'll  be  all  right  in  a  moment. 
Get  some  water,"  he  said. 

Kennedy  pulled  my  arm.  "Look  at  the  gyro- 
scope dynamo,"  he  whispered. 

I  looked.  Like  the  other  two  which  we  had 
seen,  it  also  was  a  wreck.  The  insulation  was 
burned  off  the  wires,  the  wires  were  fused  to- 
gether, and  the  storage-battery  looked  as  if  it  had 
been  burned  out. 

A  flicker  of  the  eyelid  and  Norton  seemed  to 
regain  some  degree  of  consciousness.  He  was  liv- 
ing over  again  the  ages  that  had  passed  during 
the  seconds  of  his  terrible  fall. 


THE   TERROR  IN   THE   AIR        273 

"Will  they  never  stop?  Oh,  those  sparks, 
those  sparks  I  I  can't  disconnect  it.  Sparks, 
more  sparks — will  they  never — "  So  he  rambled 
on.  It  was  fearsome  to  hear  him. 

But  Kennedy  was  now  sure  that  Norton  was 
safe  and  in  good  hands,  and  he  hurried  back  in 
the  direction  of  the  grand  stand.  I  followed. 
Flying  was  over  for  that  day,  and  the  people 
were  filing  slowly  out  toward  the  railroad  station 
where  the  special  trains  were  waiting.  We 
stopped  at  the  wireless  station  for  a  moment. 

"Is  it  true  that  Norton  will  recover!"  inquired 
the  operator. 

"Yes.  He  was  only  stunned,  thank  Heaven  I 
Did  you  keep  a  record  of  the  antics  of  your  re- 
ceiver since  I  saw  you  last?" 

"Yes,  sir.  And  I  made  a  copy  for  you.  By 
the  way,  it's  working  all  right  now  when  I  don't 
want  it.  If  Williams  was  only  in  the  air  now  I'd 
give  you  a  good  demonstration  of  communicating 
with  an  aeroplane,"  continued  the  operator  as  he 
prepared  to  leave. 

Kennedy  thanked  him  for  the  record  and  care- 
fully folded  it.  Joining  the  crowd,  we  pushed  our 
way  out,  but  instead  of  going  down  to  the  station 
with  them,  Kennedy  turned  toward  the  barn  and 
the  yellow  house. 

For  some  time  we  waited  about  casually,  but 
nothing  occurred.  At  length  Kennedy  walked  up 
to  the  shed.  The  door  was  closed  and  double 


274  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

padlocked.  He  knocked,  but  there  was  no  an- 
swer. 

Just  then  a  man  appeared  on  the  porch  of  the 
yellow  house.  Seeing  us,  he  beckoned.  As  we 
approached  he  shouted,  "He's  gone  for  the  day!" 

"Has  he  a  city  address — any  place  I  could 
reach  him  to-night ! ' '  asked  Craig. 

"I  don't  know.  He  hired  the  barn  from  me 
for  two  weeks  and  paid  in  advance.  He  told  me 
if  I  wanted  to  address  him  the  best  way  was  'Dr. 
K.  Lamar,  General  Delivery,  New  York  City.'  " 

"Ah,  then  I  suppose  I  had  better  write  to  him," 
said  Kennedy,  apparently  much  gratified  to  learn 
the  name.  "I  presume  he'll  be  taking  away  his 
apparatus  soon!" 

"Can't  say.  There's  enough  of  it.  Cy  Smith 
— he's  in  the  electric  light  company  up  to  the  vil- 
lage— says  the  doctor  has  used  a  powerful  lot  of 
current.  He's  good  pay,  though  he's  awful  close- 
mouthed.  Flying's  over  for  to-day,  ain't  it? 
Was  that  feller  much  hurt!" 

' '  No,  he  '11  be  all  right  to-morrow.  I  think  he  '11 
fly  again.  The  machine's  in  pretty  good  condi- 
tion. He's  bound  to  win  that  prize.  Good-bye." 

As  he  walked  away  I  remarked,  "How  do  you 
know  Norton  will  fly  again?" 

"I  don't,"  answered  Kennedy,  "but  I  think 
that  either  he  or  Humphreys  will.  I  wanted  to  see 
that  this  Lamar  believes  it  anyhow.  By  the  way, 
Walter  t  do  you  think  you  could  grab  a  wire  here 


THE   TERROR  IN   THE   AIR        275 

and  'phone  in  a  story  to  the  Star  that  Norton 
isn't  much  hurt  and  will  probably  be  able  to  fly 
to-morrow?  Try  to  get  the  City  News  Associa- 
tion, too,  so  that  all  the  papers  will  have  it.  I 
don't  care  about  risking  the  general  delivery — 
perhaps  Lamar  won't  call  for  any  mail,  but  he 
certainly  will  read  the  papers.  Put  it  in  the  form 
of  an  interview  with  Norton — I'll  see  that  it  is 
all  right  and  that  there  is  no  come-back.  Norton 
will  stand  for  it  when  I  tell  him  my  scheme." 

I  caught  the  Star  just  in  time  for  the  last  edi- 
tion, and  some  of  the  other  papers  that  had  later 
editions  also  had  the  story.  Of  course  all  the 
morning  papers  had  it. 

Norton  spent  the  night  in  the  Mineola  Hospital. 
He  didn't  really  need  to  stay,  but  the  doctor  said 
it  would  be  best  in  case  some  internal  injury  had 
been  overlooked.  Meanwhile  Kennedy  took 
charge  of  the  hangar  where  the  injured  machine 
was.  The  men  had  been  in  a  sort  of  panic ;  Hum- 
phreys could  not  be  found,  and  the  only  reason, 
I  think,  why  the  two  mechanicians  stayed  was  be- 
cause something  was  due  them  on  their  pay. 

Kennedy  wrote  them  out  personal  checks  for 
their  respective  amounts,  but  dated  them  two  days 
ahead  to  insure  their  staying.  He  threw  off  all 
disguise  now  and  with  authority  from  Norton  di- 
rected the  repairing  of  the  machine.  Fortunately 
it  was  in  pretty  good  condition.  The  broken  part 
was  the  skids,  not  the  essential  parts  of  the  ma- 


276  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

chine.  'As  for  the  gyroscope,  there  were  plenty 
of  them  and  another  dynamo,  and  it  was  a  very 
simple  thing  to  replace  the  old  one  that  had  been 
destroyed. 

Sinclair  worked  with  a  will,  far  past  his  regu- 
lar hours.  Jaurette  also  worked,  though  one 
could  hardly  say  with  a  will.  In  fact,  most  of 
the  work  was  done  by  Sinclair  and  Kennedy,  with 
Jaurette  sullenly  grumbling,  mostly  in  French 
under  his  breath.  I  did  not  like  the  fellow  and 
was  suspicious  of  him.  I  thought  I  noticed  that 
Kennedy  did  not  allow  him  to  do  much  of  the 
work,  either,  though  that  may  have  been  for  the 
reason  that  Kennedy  never  asked  anyone  to  help 
him  who  seemed  unwilling. 

"There,"  exclaimed  Craig  about  ten  o'clock. 
"If  we  want  to  get  back  to  the  city  in  any  kind 
of  time  to-night  we  had  better  quit.  Sinclair,  I 
think  ydu  can  finish  repairing  these  skids  in  the 
morning." 

"We  locked  up  the  hangar  and  hurried  across 
to  the  station.  It  was  late  when  we  arrived  in 
New  York,  but  Kennedy  insisted  on  posting  off 
up  to  his  laboratory,  leaving  me  to  run  down  to 
the  Star  office  to  make  sure  that  our  story  was  all 
right  for  the  morning  papers. 

I  did  not  see  him  until  morning,  when  a  large 
touring-car  drove  up.  Kennedy  routed  me  out  of 
bed.  In  the  tonneau  of  the  car  was  a  huge  pack- 
age carefully  wrapped  up. 


THE    TERROR   IN   THE   AIR        277 

"Something  I  worked  on  for  a  couple  of  hours 
last  night,"  explained  Craig,  patting  it.  "If  this 
doesn't  solve  the  problem  then  I'll  give  it  up." 

I  was  burning  with  curiosity,  but  somehow,  by; 
a  perverse  association  of  ideas,  I  merely  re- 
proached Kennedy  for  not  taking  enough  rest. 

"Oh,"  he  smiled.  "If  I  hadn't  been  working 
last  night,  Walter,  I  couldn't  have  rested  at  all 
for  thinking  about  it." 

When  we  arrived  at  the  field  Norton  was  al- 
ready there  with  his  head  bandaged.  I  thought 
him  a  little  pale,  but  otherwise  all  right.  Jaur- 
ette  was  sulking,  but  Sinclair  had  finished  the  re- 
pairs and  was  busily  engaged  in  going  over  every 
bolt  and  wire.  Humphreys  had  sent  word  that 
he  had  another  offer  and  had  not  shown  up. 

"We  must  find  him,"  exclaimed  Kennedy.  "I 
want  him  to  make  a  flight  to-day.  His  contract 
calls  for  it." 

"I  can  do  it,  Kennedy,"  asserted  Norton. 
"See,  I'm  all  right." 

He  picked  up  two  pieces  of  wire  and  held  them 
at  arm's  length,  bringing  them  together,  tip  to 
tip,  in  front  of  him  just  to  show  us  how  he  could 
control  his  nerves. 

"And  I'll  be  better  yet  by  this  afternoon,"  fie 
added.  "I  can  do  that  stunt  with  the  points  o? 
pins  then." 

Kennedy  shook  his  head  gravely,  but  Norton 
insisted,  and  finally  Kennedy  agreed  to  give  up 


278  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

wasting  time  trying  to  locate  Humphreys.  After 
that  he  and  Norton  had  a  long  whispered  confer- 
ence in  which  Kennedy  seemed  to  be  unfolding 
a  scheme. 

"I  understand,"  said  Norton  at  length,  "you 
want  me  to  put  this  sheet-lead  cover  over  the  dy- 
namo and  battery  first.  Then  you  want  me  to 
take  the  cover  off,  and  also  to  detach  the  gyro- 
scope, and  to  fly  without  using  it.  Is  that  it?" 

"Yes,"  assented  Craig.  "I  will  be  on  the  roof 
of  the  grand  stand.  The  signal  will  be  three 
waves  of  my  hat  repeated  till  I  see  you  get  it." 

After  a  quick  luncheon  we  went  up  to  our  van- 
tage-point. On  the  way  Kennedy  had  spoken  to 
the  head  of  the  Pinkertons  engaged  by  the  man- 
agement for  the  meet,  and  had  also  dropped  in  to 
see  the  wireless  operator  to  ask  him  to  send  up  a 
messenger  if  he  saw  the  same  phenomena  as  he 
had  observed  the  day  before. 

On  the  roof  Kennedy  took  from  his  pocket  a, 
little  instrument  with  a  needle  which  trembled 
back  and  forth  over  a  dial.  It  was  nearing  the 
time  for  the  start  of  the  day's  flying,  and  the 
aeroplanes  were  getting  ready.  Kennedy  was 
calmly  biting  a  cigar,  casting  occasional  glances 
at  the  needle  as  it  oscillated.  Suddenly,  as  Wil- 
liams rose  in  the  Wright  machine,  the  needle 
swung  quickly  and  pointed  straight  at  the  avia- 
tion field,  vibrating  through  a  small  arc,  back  and 
forth. 


THE   TERROR  IN   THE   AIR        279 

"The  operator  is  getting  his  apparatus  ready 
to  signal  to  Williams,"  remarked  Craig.  "This 
is  an  apparatus  called  an  ondometer.  It  tells 
you  the  direction  and  something  of  the  magnitude 
of  the  Hertzian  waves  used  in  wireless." 

Five  or  ten  minutes  passed.  Norton  was  get- 
ting ready  to  fly.  I  could  see  through  my  field- 
glass  that  he  was  putting  something  over  his  gy- 
roscope and  over  the  dynamo,  but  could  not  quite 
make  out  what  it  was.  His  machine  seemed  to 
leap  up  in  the  air  as  if  eager  to  redeem  itself. 
Norton  with  his  white-bandaged  head  was  the 
hero  of  the  hour.  No  sooner  had  his  aeroplane 
got  up  over  the  level  of  the  trees  than  I  heard  a 
quick  exclamation  from  Craig. 

"Look  at  the  needle,  Walter!"  he  cried.  "As 
soon  as  Norton  got  into  the  air  it  shot  around  di- 
rectly opposite  to  the  wireless  station,  and  now  it 
is  pointing — " 

We  raised  our  eyes  in  the  direction  which  it  in- 
dicated. It  was  precisely  in  line  with  the 
weather-beaten  barn. 

I  gasped.  What  did  it  mean?  Did  it  mean  in 
some  way  another  accident  to  Norton — perhaps 
fatal  this  time?  Why  had  Kennedy  allowed  him 
to  try  it  to-day  when  there  was  even  a  suspicion 
that  some  nameless  terror  was  abroad  in  the  airt 
Quickly  I  turned  to  see  if  Norton  was  all  right. 
Yes,  there  he  was,  circling  above  us  in  a  series  of 
wide  spirals,  climbing  up,  up.  Now  he  seemed 


280  ,THE   SILENT  BULLET 

almost  to  stop,  to  hover  motionless.  He  was  mo- 
tionless. His  engine  had  been  cut  out,  and  I 
could  see  his  propeller  stopped.  He  was  riding 
as  a  ship  rides  on  the  ocean. 

A  boy  ran  up  the  ladder  to  the  roof.  Kennedy 
unfolded  the  note  and  shoved  it  into  my  hands. 
It  was  from  the  operator. 

"Wireless  out  of  business  again.  Curse  that 
fellow  who  is  butting  in.  Am  keeping  record," 
was  all  it  said. 

I  shot  a  glance  of  inquiry  at  Kennedy,  but  he 
was  paying  no  attention  now  to  anything  but 
Norton.  He  held  his  watch  in  his  hand. 

"Walter,"  he  ejaculated  as  he  snapped  it  shut, 
"it  has  now  been  seven  minutes  and  a  half  since 
he  stopped  his  propeller.  The  Brooks  Prize  calls 
for  five  minutes  only.  Norton  has  exceeded  it 
fifty  per  cent.  Here  goes." 

With  his  hat  in  his  hand  he  waved  three  times 
and  stopped.  Then  he  repeated  the  process. 

At  the  third  time  the  aeroplane  seemed  to  give* 
a  start.  The  propeller  began  to  revolve,  Nor^ 
ton  starting  it  on  the  compression  successfully. 
Slowly  he  circled  down  again.  Toward  the  end 
of  the  descent  he  stopped  the  engine  and  vol- 
planed, or  coasted,  to  the  ground,  landing  gently 
in  front  of  his  hangar. 

A  wild  cheer  rose  into  the  air  from  the  crowd 
below  us.  All  eyes  were  riveted  on  the  activity 
.about  Norton's  biplane.  They  were  doing  some- 


THE   TERROR   IN   THE   AIR        281 

thing  to  it.  Whatever  it  was,  it  was  finished 
in  a  minute  and  the  men  were  standing  again  at  a 
respectful  distance  from  the  propellers.  Again 
Norton  was  in  the  air.  As  he  rose  above  the  field 
Kennedy  gave  a  last  glance  at  his  ondometer  and 
sprang  down  the  ladder.  I  followed  closely. 
Back  of  the  crowd  he  hurried,  down  the  walk  to 
the  entrance  near  the  railroad  station.  The  man 
in  charge  of  the  Pinkertons  was  at  the  gate  with 
two  other  men,  apparently  waiting. 

"Come  on!"  shouted  Craig. 

We  four  followed  him  as  fast  as  we  could.  He 
turned  in  at  the  lane  running  up  to  the  yellow 
house,  so  as  to  approach  the  barn  from  the  rear, 
unobserved. 

"Quietly,  now,"  he  cautioned. 

We  were  now  at  the  door  of  the  barn.  A  curi- 
ous crackling,  snapping  noise  issued.  Craig 
gently  tried  the  door.  It  was  bolted  on  the  in- 
side. As  many  of  us  as  could  threw  ourselves 
like  a  human  catapult  against  it.  It  yielded. 

Inside  I  saw  a  sheet  of  flame  fifteen  or  twenty 
feet  long — it  was  a  veritable  artificial  bolt  of 
lightning.  A  man  with  a  telescope  had  been  peer- 
ing out  of  the  window,  but  now  was  facing  us  in 
surprise. 

"Lamar,"  shouted  Kennedy,  drawing  a  pistol, 
"one  motion  of  your  hand  and  you  are  a  dead 
man.  Stand  still — where  you  are.  You  are 
caught  red-handed." 


282  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

The  rest  of  us  shrank  back  in  momentary  fear 
of  the  gigantic  forces  of  nature  which  seemed  let 
loose  in  the  room.  The  thought,  in  my  mind  at 
least,  was :  Suppose  this  arch-fiend  should  turn  his 
deadly  power  on  us? 

Kennedy  saw  us  from  the  corner  of  his  eye. 
" Don't  be  afraid,"  he  said  with  just  a  curl  to  his 
lip.  "I've  seen  all  this  before.  It  won't  hurt 
you.  It's  a  high  frequency  current.  The  man 
has  simply  appropriated  the  invention  of  Mr.  Ni- 
kola Tesla.  Seize  him.  He  won't  struggle. 
I've  got  him  covered." 

Two  burly  Pinkertons  leaped  forward  gingerly 
into  the  midst  of  the  electrical  apparatus,  and  in 
less  time  than  it  takes  to  write  it  Lamar  was 
hustled  out  to  the  doorway,  each  arm  pinioned 
back  of  him. 

As  we  stood,  half  dazed  by  the  suddenness 
of  the  turn  of  events,  Kennedy  hastily  explained : 
"  Tesla 's  theory  is  that  under  certain  conditions 
the  atmosphere,  which  is  normally  a  high  insula- 
tor, assumes  conducting  properties  and  so  be- 
comes capable  of  conveying  any  amount  of  elec- 
trical energy.  I  myself  have  seen  electrical  oscil- 
lations such  as  these  in  this  room  of  such  inten- 
sity that  while  they  could  be  circulated  with  im- 
punity through  one's  arms  and  chest  they  would 
melt  wires  farther  along  in  the  circuit.  Yet  the 
person  through  whom  such  a  current  is  passing 
feels  no  inconvenience.  I  have  seen  a  loop  of 


THE   TERROR   IN   THE   AIR        283 

heavy  copper  wire  energised  by  such  oscillations 
and  a  mass  of  metal  within  the  loop  heated  to  the 
fusing  point,  and  yet  into  the  space  in  which  this 
destructive  aerial  turmoil  was  going  on  I  have  re- 
peatedly thrust  my  hand  and  even  my  head,  with- 
out feeling  anything  or  experiencing  any  injuri- 
ous after-effect.  In  this  form  all  the  energy  of 
all  the  dynamos  of  Niagara  could  pass  through 
one's  body  and  yet  produce  no  injury.  But,  di- 
abolically directed,  this  vast  energy  has  been 
used  by  this  man  to  melt  the  wires  in  the  little 
dynamo  that  runs  Norton's  gyroscope.  That  is 
all.  Now  to  the  aviation  field.  I  have  something 
more  to  show  you." 

We  hurried  as  fast  as  we  could  up  the  street 
and  straight  out  on  the  field,  across  toward  the 
Norton  hangar,  the  crowd  gaping  in  wonderment. 
Kennedy  waved  frantically  for  Norton  to  come 
down,  and  Norton,  who  was  only  a  few  hundred 
feet  in  the  air,  seemed  to  see  and  understand. 

As  we  stood  waiting  before  the  hangar  Ken- 
nedy could  no  longer  restrain  his  impatience. 

"I  suspected  some  wireless-power  trick  when 
I  found  that  the  field  wireless  telegraph  failed  to 
work  every  time  Norton's  aeroplane  was  in  the 
air,"  he  said,  approaching  close  to  Lamar.  "I 
just  happened  to  catch  sight  of  that  peculiar  wire- 
less mast  of  yours.  A  little  flash  of  light  first  at- 
tracted my  attention  to  it.  I  thought  it  was  an 
electric  spark,  but  you  are  too  clever  for  that, 


284  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

Lamar.  Still,  you  forgot  a  much  simpler  thing. 
It  was  the  glint  of  the  sun  on  the  lens  of  your 
telescope  as  you  were  watching  Norton  that  be- 
trayed you." 

Lamar  said  nothing. 

' 'I'm  glad  to  say  you  had  no  confederate  in  the 
hangar  here,"  continued  Craig.  "At  first  I 
suspected  it.  Anyhow,  you  succeeded  pretty  well 
single  handed,  two  lives  lost  and  two  machines 
wrecked.  Norton  flew  all  right  yesterday  when 
he  left  his  gyroscope  and  dynamo  behind,  but 
when  he  took  them  along  you  were  able  to  fuse 
the  wires  in  the  dynamo — you  pretty  nearly  suc- 
ceeded in  adding  his  name  to  those  of  Browne  and 
Herrick." 

The  whir  of  Norton's  machine  told  us  he  was 
approaching.  We  scattered  to  give  him  space 
enough  to  choose  the  spot  where  he  would  alight. 
As  the  men  caught  his  machine  to  steady  it,  he 
jumped  lightly  to  the  ground. 

"Where's  Kennedy?"  he  asked,  and  then,  with- 
out waiting  for  a  reply,  he  exclaimed:  "Queerest 
thing  I  ever  saw  up  there.  The  dynamo  wasn't 
protected  by  the  sheet-lead  shield  in  this  flight  as 
in  the  first  to-day.  I  hadn't  risen  a  hundred  feet 
before  I  happened  to  hear  the  darndest  sputter- 
ing in  the  dynamo.  Look,  boys,  the  insulation  is 
completely  burned  off  the  wires,  and  the  wires 
are  nearly  all  fused  together." 

"So  it  was  in  the  other  two   wrecked  ma- 


THE   TERROR  IN   THE   AIR        285 

chines,"  added  Kennedy,  coming  coolly  forward. 
"If  you  hadn't  had  everything  protected  by  those 
shields  I  gave  you  in  your  first  flight  to-day  you 
would  have  simply  repeated  your  fall  of  yester- 
day— perhaps  fatally.  This  fellow  has  been 
directing  the  full  strength  of  his  wireless  high- 
tension  electricity  straight  at  you  all  the  time." 

"What  fellow!"  demanded  Norton. 

The  two  Pinkertons  shoved  Lamar  forward. 
Norton  gave  a  contemptuous  look  at  him.  "De- 
lanne,"  he  said,  "I  knew  you  were  a  crook  when 
you  tried  to  infringe  on  my  patent,  but  I  didn't 
think  you  were  coward  enough  to  resort  to — to 
murder." 

Lamar,  or  rather  Delanne,  shrank  back  as  if 
even  the  protection  of  his  captors  was  safety  com- 
pared to  the  threatening  advance  of  Norton  to- 
ward him. 

"Pouff!"  exclaimed  Norton,  turning  suddenly 
on  his  heel.  "What  a  fool  I  am!  The  law  will 
take  care  of  such  scoundrels  as  you.  What's  the 
grand  stand  cheering  for  now!"  he  asked,  looking 
across  the  field  in  an  effort  to  regain  his  self-con- 
trol. 

A  boy  from  one  of  the  hangars  down  the  line 
spoke  up  from  the  back  of  the  crowd  in  a  shrill, 
piping  voice. .  "You  have  been  awarded  the 
Brooks  Prize,  sir,"  he  said. 


THE  BLACK   HAND 

KENNEDY  and  I  had  been  dining  rather  late  one 
evening  at  Luigi 's,  a  little  Italian  restaurant  on 
the  lower  West  Side.  We  had  known  the  place 
well  in  our  student  days,  and  had  made  a  point 
of  visiting  it  once  a  month  since,  in  order  to  keep 
in  practice  in  the  fine  art  of  gracefully  handling 
long  shreds  of  spaghetti.  Therefore  we  did  not 
think  it  strange  when  the  proprietor  himself 
stopped  a  moment  at  our  table  to  greet  us. 
Glancing  furtively  around  at  the  other  diners, 
mostly  Italians,  he  suddenly  leaned  over  and 
whispered  to  Kennedy: 

"I  have  heard  of  your  wonderful  detective 
work,  Professor.  Could  you  give  a  little  advice 
in  the  case  of  a  friend  of  mine?" 

"Surely,  Luigi.  What  is  the  case?"  asked 
Craig,  leaning  back  in  his  chair. 

Luigi  glanced  around  again  apprehensively  and 
lowered  his  voice.  "Not  so  loud,  sir.  When  you 
pay  your  check,  go  out,  walk  around  Washington 
Square,  and  come  in  at  the  private  entrance.  I'll 
be  waiting  in  the  hall.  My  friend  is  dining  pri- 
vately upstairs." 


THE   BLACK   HAND  287 

We  lingered  a  while  over  our  chianti,  then 
quietly  paid  the  check  and  departed. 

True  to  his  word,  Luigi  was  waiting  for  us  in 
the  dark  hall.  With  a  motion  that  indicated 
silence,  he  led  us  up  the  stairs  to  the  second  floor, 
and  quickly  opened  a  door  into  what  seemed  to 
he  a  fair-sized  private  dining-room.  A  man  was 
pacing  the  floor  nervously.  On  a  table  was  some 
food,  untouched.  As  the  door  opened  I  thought 
he  started  as  if  in  fear,  and  I  am  sure  his  dark 
face  blanched,  if  only  for  an  instant.  Imagine 
our  surprise  at  seeing  Gennaro,  the  great  tenor, 
with  whom  merely  to  have  a  speaking  acquaint- 
ance was  to  argue  oneself  famous. 

"Oh,  it  is  you,  Luigi,"  he  exclaimed  in  perfect' 
English,  rich  and  mellow.  "And  who  are  these 
gentlemen?" 

Luigi  merely  replied,  "Friends,"  in  English 
also,  and  then  dropped  off  into  a  voluble,  low- 
toned  explanation  in  Italian. 

I  could  see,  as  we  waited,  that  the  same  idea 
had  flashed  over  Kennedy's  mind  as  over  my  own. 
It  was  now  three  or  four  days  since  the  papers 
had  reported  the  strange  kidnapping  of  Gennaro 's 
five-year-old  daughter  Adelina,  his  only  child,  and 
the  sending  of  a  demand  for  ten  thousand  dollars 
ransom,  signed,  as  usual,  with  the  mystic  Black 
Hand — a  name  to  conjure  with  in  blackmail  and 
extortion. 

As  Signor  Gennaro  advanced  toward  us,  after 


288  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

his  short  talk  with  Luigi,  almost  before  the  intro- 
ductions were  over,  Kennedy  anticipated  him  by 
saying:  "I  understand,  Signer,  before  you  ask 
me.  I  have  read  all  about  it  in  the  papers.  You 
want  someone  to  help  you  catch  the  criminals 
who  are  holding  your  little  girl." 

' '  No,  no ! "  exclaimed  Gennaro  excitedly.  ' '  Not 
that.  I  want  to  get  my  daughter  first.  After 
that,  catch  them  if  you  can — yes,  I  should  like  to 
have  someone  do  it.  But  read  this  first  and  tell 
me  what  you  think  of  it.  How  should  I  act  to 
get  my  little  Adelina  back  without  harming  a 
hair  of  her  head?"  The  famous  singer  drew 
from  a  capacious  pocketbook  a  dirty,  crumpled 
letter,  scrawled  on  cheap  paper. 

Kennedy  translated  it  quickly.    It  read: 

Honourable  sir:  Your  daughter  is  in  safe  hands. 
But,  by  the  saints,  if  you  give  this  letter  to  the  police 
as  you  did  the  other,  not  only  she  but  your  family  also, 
someone  near  to  you,  will  suffer.  We  will  not  fail  as 
we  did  Wednesday.  If  you  want  your  daughter  back, 
go  yourself,  alone  and  without  telling  a  soul,  to  Enrico 
Albano's  Saturday  night  at  the  twelfth  hour.  You  must 
provide  yourself  with  $10,000  in  bills  hidden  in  Satur- 
day's II  Progresso  Italiano.  In  the  back  room  you  will 
see  a  man  sitting  alone  at  a  table.  He  will  have  a  red 
flower  on  his  coat.  You  are  to  say,  "A  fine  opera  is  'I 
Pagliacci.'  "  If  he  answers,  "  Not  without  Gennaro," 
lay  the  newspaper  down  on  the  table.  He  will  pick  it  up, 
leaving  his  own,  the  Bolletino.  On  the  third  page  you 


THE   BLACK  HAND  289 

will  find  written  the  place  where  your  daughter  has  heen 
left  waiting  for  you.  Go  immediately  and  get  her. 
But,  by  the  God,  if  you  have  so  much  as  the  shadow  of 
the  police  near  Enrico's  your  daughter  will  be  sent  to 
you  in  a  box  that  night.  Do  not  fear  to  come.  We 
pledge  our  word  to  deal  fairly  if  you  deal  fairly.  This 
is  a  last  warning.  Lest  you  shall  forget  we  will  show 
one  other  sign  of  our  power  to-morrow. 

LA  MANO  NEBA. 

The  end  of  this  ominous  letter  was  gruesomely 
decorated  with  a  skull  and  cross-bones,  a  rough 
drawing  of  a  dagger  thrust  through  a  bleeding 
heart,  a  coffin,  and,  under  all,  a  huge  black  hand. 
There  was  no  doubt  about  the  type  of  letter  that 
it  was.  It  was  such  as  have  of  late  years  become 
increasingly  common  in  all  our  large  cities,  baf- 
fling the  best  detectives. 

1  'You  have  not  showed  this  to  the  police,  I  pre- 
sume I "  asked  Kennedy. 

"Naturally  not. " 

"Are  you  going  Saturday  night?" 

"I  am  afraid  to  go  and  afraid  to  stay  away," 
was  the  reply,  and  the  voice  of  the  fifty-thousand- 
dollars-a-season  tenor  was  as  human  as  that  of  a 
five-dollar-a-week  father,  for  at  bottom  all  men, 
high  or  low,  are  one. 

"  'We  will  not  fail  as  we  did  Wednesday,'  * 
reread  Craig.    "What  does  that  meant" 

Gennaro  fumbled  in  his  pocketbook  again,  and 
at  last  drew  forth  a  typewritten  letter  bearing  the 


290  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

letter-head  of  the  Leslie  Laboratories,  Incorpor- 
ated. 

11  After  I  received  the  first  threat,"  explained 
Gennaro,  "my  wife  and  I  went  from  our  apart- 
ments at  the  hotel  to  her  father's,  the  banker 
Cesare,  you  know,  who  lives  on  Fifth  Avenue.  I 
gave  the  letter  to  the  Italian  Squad  of  the  police. 
The  next  morning  my  father-in-law's  butler 
noticed  something  peculiar  about  the  milk.  He 
barely  touched  some  of  it  to  his  tongue,  and  he 
has  been  violently  ill  ever  since.  I  at  once  sent 
the  milk  to  the  laboratory  of  my  friend  Doctor 
Leslie  to  have  it  analysed.  This  letter  shows 
what  the  household  escaped." 

' '  My  dear  Gennaro, ' '  read  Kennedy.  ' '  The  milk  sub- 
mitted to  us  for  examination  on  the  10th  inst.  has  been 
carefully  analysed,  and  I  beg  to  hand  you  herewith  the 
result : 

"Specific  gravity  1.036  at  15  degrees  Cent. 

Water  84.60  per  cent. 

Casein  3.49    "     " 

Albumin    56   "     " 

Globulin 1.32   "     " 

Lactose  5.08   "     " 

Ash  72    "     " 

Fat   3.42    "     " 

Ricin  1.19   "     " 

"Ricin  is  a  new  and  little-known  poison  derived  from 
the  shell  of  the  castor-oil  bean.  Professor  Ehrlich  states 
that  one  gram  of  the  pure  poison  will  kill  1,500,000 


THE   BLACK   HAND  291 

guinea  pigs.  Ricin  was  lately  isolated  by  Professor 
Robert,  of  Rostock,  but  is  seldom  found  except  in  an 
impure  state,  though  still  very  deadly.  It  surpasses 
strychnin,  prussic  acid,  and  other  commonly  known 
drugs.  I  congratulate  you  and  yours  on  escaping  and 
shall  of  course  respect  your  wishes  absolutely  regarding 
keeping  secret  this  attempt  on  your  life.  Believe  me, 
"Very  sincerely  yours, 

"C.W.LESLIE." 

As'  Kennedy    handed    the    letter    back,    he 
remarked  significantly:  "I  can  see  very  readily; 
why  you  don't  care  to  have  the  police  figure  in 
your  case.    It  has   got   quite  beyond   ordinary 
police  methods." 

"And  to-morrow,  too,  they  are  going  to  give 
another  sign  of  their  power,"  groaned  Gennaro, 
sinking  into  the  chair  before  his  untasted  food. 

"You  say  you  have  left  your  hotel?"  inquired 
Kennedy. 

"Yes.  My  wife  insisted  that  we  would  be  more 
safely  guarded  at  the  residence  of  her  father,  the 
banker.  But  we  are  afraid  even  there  since  the 
poison  attempt.  So  I  have  come  here  secretly  to 
Luigi,  my  old  friend  Luigi,  who  is  preparing  food! 
for  us,  and  in  a  few  minutes  one  of  Cesare's  auto- 
mobiles will  be  here,  and  I  will  take  the  food  up> 
to  her — sparing  no  expense  or  trouble.  She  is. 
heart-broken.  It  will  kill  her,  Professor  Ken- 
nedy, if  anything  happens  to  our  little  Adelina. 

"Ah,  sir,  I  am  not  poor  myself.    A  month's 


292  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

salary  at  the  opera-house,  that  is  what  they  ask 
of  me.  Gladly  would  I  give  it,  ten  thousand 
dollars — all,  if  they  asked  it,  of  my  contract  with 
Herr  Schleppencour,  the  director.  But  the  police 
— bah! — they  are  all  for  catching  the  villains. 
What  good  will  it  do  me  if  they  catch  them  and 
my  little  Adelina  is  returned  to  me  dead?  It  is 
all  very  well  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  to  talk  of  justice 
and  the  law,  but  I  am — what  you  call  it? — an 
emotional  Latin.  I  want  my  little  daughter — 
and  at  any  cost.  Catch  the  villains  afterward — 
yes.  I  will  pay  double  then  to  catch  them  so  that 
they  cannot  blackmail  me  again.  Only  first  I 
want  my  daughter  back." 

"And  your  father-in-law?" 

"My  father-in-law,  he  has  been  among  you  long 
enough  to  be  one  of  you.  He  has  fought  them. 
He  has  put  up  a  sign  in  his  banking-house,  'No 
money  paid  on  threats.'  But  I  say  it  is  foolish. 
I  do  not  know  America  as  well  as  he,  but  I  know 
this:  the  police  never  succeed — the  ransom  is 
paid  without  their  knowledge,  and  they  very  often 
take  the  credit.  I  say,  pay  first,  then  I  will  swear 
a  righteous  vendetta — I  will  bring  the  dogs  to 
justice  with  the  money  yet  on  them.  Only  show 
me  how,  show  me  how." 

"First  of  all,"  replied  Kennedy,  "I  want  you 
to  answer  one  question,  truthfully,  without  reser- 
vation, as  to  a  friend.  I  am  your  friend,  believe 
toe.  Is  there  any  person,  a  relative  or  acquaint- 


THE   BLACK  HAND  293 

ance  of  yourself  or  your  wife  or  your  father-in- 
law,  whom  you  even  have  reason  to  suspect  of 
being  capable  of  extorting  money  from  you  in  this 
way?  I  needn't  say  that  that  is  the  experience 
of  the  district  attorney's  office  in  the  large  major- 
ity of  cases  of  this  so-called  Black  Hand." 

"No,"  replied  the  tenor  without  hesitation. 
"I  Tmow  that,  and  I  have  thought  about  it.  No, 
I  can  think  of  no  one.  I  know  you  Americans 
often  speak  of  the  Black  Hand  as  a  myth  coined 
originally  by  a  newspaper  writer.  Perhaps  it 
has  no  organisation.  But,  Professor  Kennedy, 
to  me  it  is  no  myth.  What  if  the  real  Black  Hand 
is  any  gang  of  criminals  who  choose  to  use  that 
convenient  name  to  extort  money?  Is  it  the  less 
real?  My  daughter  is  gone!" 

"Exactly,"  agreed  Kennedy.  "It  is  not  a  the- 
ory that  confronts  you.  It  is  a  hard,  cold  fact.  I 
understand  that  perfectly.  What  is  the  address 
of  this  Albano's?" 

Luigi  mentioned  a  number  on  Mulberry  Street, 
and  Kennedy  made  a  note  of  it. 

"It  is  a  gambling  saloon,"  explained  Luigi. 
"Albano  is  a  Neapolitan,  a  Camorrista,  one  of 
my  countrymen  of  whom  I  am  thoroughly 
ashamed,  Professor  Kennedy." 

"Do  you  think  this  Albano  had  anything  to  do 
with  the  letter?" 

Luigi  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

Just  then  a  big  limousine  was  heard  outside. 


294  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

Luigi  picked  up  a  huge  hamper  that  was  placed 
in  a  corner  of  the  room  and,  followed  closely  by 
Signer  Gennaro,  hurried  down  to  it.  As  the 
tenor  left  us  he  grasped  our  hands  in  each  of  his. 

"I  have  an  idea  in  my  mind,"  said  Craig 
simply.  "I  will  try  to  think  it  out  in  detail 
to-night.  Where  can  I  find  you  to-morrow ?" 

"Come  to  me  at  the  opera-house  in  the  after- 
noon, or  if  you  want  me  sooner  at  Mr.  Cesare's 
residence.  Good  night,  and  a  thousand  thanks  to 
you,  Professor  Kennedy,  and  to  you,  also,  Mr. 
Jameson.  I  trust  you  absolutely  because  Luigi 
trusts  you." 

We  sat  in  the  little  dining-room  until  we  heard 
the  door  of  the  limousine  bang  shut  and  the  car 
shoot  off  with  the  rattle  of  the  changing  gears. 

"One  more  question,  Luigi,"  said  Craig  as  the 
door  opened  again.  "I  have  never  been  on  that 
block  in  Mulberry  Street  where  this  Albano's  is. 
Do  you  happen  to  know  any  of  the  shopkeepers 
on  it  or  near  it?" 

"I  have  a  cousin  who  has  a  drug-store  on  the 
corner  below  Albano's,  on  the  same  side  of  the 
street." 

"Good!  Do  you  think  he  would  let  me  use  his 
store  for  a  few  minutes  Saturday  night — of 
course  without  any  risk  to  himself?" 

"I  think  I  could  arrange  it." 

"Very  well.  Then  to-morrow,  say  at  nine  in 
the  morning,  I  will  stop  here,  and  we  will  all  go 


THE   BLACK   HAND  295 

over  to  see  him.  Good  night,  Luigi,  and  many 
thanks  for  thinking  of  me  in  connection  with  this 
case.  I've  enjoyed  Signer  Gennaro's  singing 
often  enough  at  the  opera  to  want  to  render  him 
this  service,  and  I'm  only  too  glad  to  be  able  to 
be  of  service  to  all  honest  Italians ;  that  is,  if  I 
succeed  in  carrying  out  a  plan  I  have  in  mind." 

A  little  before  nine  the  following  day  Kennedy 
and  I  dropped  into  Luigi 's  again.  Kennedy  was 
carrying  a  suit-case  which  he  had  taken  over  from 
his  laboratory  to  our  rooms  the  night  before. 
Luigi  was  waiting  for  us,  and  without  losing  a 
minute  we  sallied  forth. 

By  means  of  the  tortuous  twists  of  streets  ill 
old  Greenwich  village  we  came  out  at  last  on 
Bleecker  Street  and  began  walking  east  amid  the 
hurly-burly  of  races  of  lower  New  York.  We 
had  not  quite  reached  Mulberry  Street  when  our 
attention  was  attracted  by  a  large  crowd  on  one 
of  the  busy  corners,  held  back  by  a  cordon  of 
police  who  were  endeavouring  to  keep  the  people 
moving  with  that  burly  good  nature  which  the 
six-foot  Irish  policeman  displays  toward  the  five- 
foot  burden-bearers  of  southern  and  eastern 
Europe  who  throng  New  York. 

Apparently,  we  saw,  as  we  edged  up  into  the 
front  of  the  crowd,  here  was  a  building  whose 
whole  front  had  literally  been  torn  off  and 
wrecked.  The  thick  plate-glass  of  the  windows 
was  smashed  to  a  mass  of  greenish  splinters  on 


296  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

the  sidewalk,  while  the  windows  of  the  upper 
floors  and  for  several  houses  down  the  block  in 
either  street  were  likewise  broken.  Some  thick 
iron  bars  which  had  formerly  protected  the  win- 
dows were  now  bent  and  twisted.  A  huge  hole 
yawned  in  the  floor  inside  the  doorway,  and  peer- 
ing in  we  could  see  the  desks  and  chairs  a  tangled 
mass  of  kindling. 

"What's  the  matter?"  I  inquired  of  an  officer 
near  me,  displaying  my  reporter's  fire-line  badge, 
more  for  its  moral  effect  than  in  the  hope  of  get- 
ting any  real  information  in  these  days  of 
enforced  silence  toward  the  press. 

"Black  Hand  bomb,"  was  the  laconic  reply. 

"Whew!"  I  whistled.    "Anyone  hurt?" 

"They  don't  usually  kill  anyone,  do  they?" 
asked  the  officer  by  way  of  reply  to  test  my 
acquaintance  with  such  things. 

"No,"  I  admitted.  "They  destroy  more  prop- 
erty than  lives.  But  did  they  get  anyone  this 
time?  This  must  have  been  a  thoroughly  over- 
loaded bomb,  I  should  judge  by  the  looks  of 
things." 

"Came  pretty  close  to  it.  The  bank  hadn't 
any  more  than  opened  when,  bang !  went  this  gas- 
pipe-and-dynamite  thing.  Crowd  collected  before 
the  smoke  had  fairly  cleared.  Man  who  owns 
the  bank  was  hurt,  but  not  badly.  Now  come, 
beat  it  down  to  headquarters  if  you  want  to  find 
out  any  more.  You'll  find  it  printed  on  the  pink 


THE   BLACK  HAND  297 

slips — the  'squeal  book' — by  this  time.  'Gainst 
the  rules  for  me  to  talk,"  he  added  with  a  good- 
natured  grin,  then  to  the  crowd:  "G'wan,  now. 
You're  blockin'  traffic.  Keep  movin'." 

I  turned  to  Craig  and  Luigi.  Their  eyes  were 
riveted  on  the  big  gilt  sign,  half  broken,  and  all 
askew  overhead.  It  read: 

GIRO   DI    CESABE    &    CO.   BANKERS 
NEW    YORK,   GENOA,    NAPLES,    ROME,    PALERMO 

"This  is  the  reminder  so  that  Gennaro  and  his 
father-in-law  will  not  forget,"  I  gasped. 

"Yes,"  added  Craig,  pulling  us  away,  "and 
Cesare  himself  is  wounded,  too.  Perhaps  that 
was  for  putting  up  the  notice  refusing  to  pay. 
Perhaps  not.  It's  a  queer  case — they  usually 
set  the  bombs  off  at  night  when  no  one  is  around. 
There  must  be  more  back  of  this  than  merely  to 
scare  Gennaro.  It  looks  to  me  as  if  they  were 
after  Casare,  too,  first  by  poison,  then  by  dyna- 
mite." . 

We  shouldered  our  way  out  through  the  crowd 
and  went  on  until  we  came  to  Mulberry  Street, 
pulsing  with  life.  Down  we  went  past  the  little 
shops,  dodging  the  children,  and  making  way  for 
women  with  huge  bundles  of  sweat-shop  clothing 
accurately  balanced  on  their  heads  or  hugged  up 
under  their  capacious  capes.  Here  was  just  one 


298  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

little  colony  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
Italians — a  population  larger  than  the  Italian 
population  of  Rome — of  whose  life  the  rest  of 
New  York  knew  and  cared  nothing. 

At  last  we  came  to  Albano  's  little  wine-shop,  a 
dark,  evil,  malodorous  place  on  the  street  level 
of  a  five-story,  alleged  "new-law"  tenement. 
Without  hesitation  Kennedy  entered,  and  we  fol- 
lowed, acting  the  part  of  a  slumming  party. 
There  were  a  few  customers  at  this  early  hour, 
men  out  of  employment  and  an  inoffensive-look- 
ing lot,  though  of  course  they  eyed  us  sharply. 
Albano  himself  proved  to  be  a  greasy,  low-browed 
fellow  who  had  a  sort  of  cunning  look.  I  could 
well  imagine  such  a  fellow  spreading  terror  in 
the  hearts  of  simple  folk  by  merely  pressing  both 
temples  with  his  thumbs  and  drawing  his  long 
bony  fore-finger  under  his  throat — the  so-called 
Black  Hand  sign  that  has  shut  up  many  a  witness 
in  the  middle  of  his  testimony  even  in  open  court. 

We  pushed  through  to  the  low-ceilinged  back 
room,  which  was  empty,  and  sat  down  at  a  table. 
Over  a  bottle  of  Albano 's  famous  California 
"red  ink"  we  sat  silently.  Kennedy  was  mak- 
ing a  mental  note  of  the  place.  In  the  middle  of 
the  ceiling  was  a  single  gas-burner  with  a  big 
reflector  over  it.  In  the  back  wall  of  the  room 
was  a  horizontal  oblong  window,  barred,  and  with 
a  sash  that  opened  like  a  transom.  The  tables 
were  dirty  and  the  chairs  rickety.  The  walls 


THE  BLACK  HAND  299 

were  bare  and  unfinished,  with  beams  innocent 
of  decoration.  Altogether  it  was  as  unpre- 
possessing a  place  as  I  had  ever  seen. 

Apparently  satisfied  with  his  scrutiny,  Ken- 
nedy got  up  to  go,  complimenting  the  proprietor 
on  his  wine.  I  could  see  that  Kennedy  had  made 
up  his  mind  as  to  his  course  of  action. 

"How  sordid  crime  really  is,"  he  remarked  as 
we  walked  on  down  the  street.  "Look  at  that 
place  of  Albano's.  I  defy  even  the  police  news 
reporter  on  the  Star  to  find  any  glamour  in  that." 

Our  next  stop  was  at  the  corner  at  the  little 
store  kept  by  the  cousin  of  Luigi,  who  conducted 
us  back  of  the  partition  where  prescriptions  were 
compounded,  and  found  us  chairs. 

A  hurried  explanation  from  Luigi  brought  a 
cloud  to  the  open  face  of  the  druggist,  as  if  he 
hesitated  to  lay  himself  and  his  little  fortune  open 
to  the  blackmailers.  Kennedy  saw  it  and  inter- 
rupted. 

"All  that  I  wish  to  do,"  he  said,  "is  to  put  in  a 
little  instrument  here  and  use  it  to-night  for  a  few 
minutes.  Indeed,  there  will  be  no  risk  to  you, 
Vincenzo.  Secrecy  is  what  I  desire,  and  no  one 
will  ever  know  about  it." 

Vincenzo  was  at  length  convinced,  and  Craig 
opened  his  suit-case.  There  was  little  in  it  except 
several  coils  of  insulated  wire,  some  tools,  a 
couple  of  packages  wrapped  up,  and  a  couple 
of  pairs  of  overalls.  In  a  moment  Kennedy 


300  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

had  donned  overalls  and  was  smearing  dirt 
and  grease  over  Ms  face  and  hands.  Under  his 
direction  I  did  the  same. 

Taking  the  bag  of  tools,  the  wire,  and  one  of 
the  small  packages,  we  went  out  on  the  street  and 
then  up  through  the  dark  and  ill-ventilated  hall 
of  the  tenement.  Half-way  up  a  woman  stopped 
us  suspiciously. 

"Telephone  company,"  said  Craig  curtly. 
"Here's  permission  from  the  owner  of  the  house 
to  string  wires  across  the  roof." 

He  pulled  an  old  letter  out  of  his  pocket,  but 
as  it  was  too  dark  to  read  even  if  the  woman  had 
cared  to  do  so,  we  went  on  up  as  he  had  expected, 
unmolested.  At  last  we  came  to  the  roof,  where 
there  were  some  children  at  play  a  couple  of 
houses  down  from  us. 

Kennedy  began  by  dropping  two  strands  of 
wire  down  to  the  ground  in  the  back  yard  behind 
Vincenzo's  shop.  Then  he  proceeded  to  lay  two 
wires  along  the  edge  of  the  roof. 

We  had  worked  only  a  little  while  when  the 
children  began  to  collect.  However,  Kennedy 
kept  right  on  until  we  reached  the  tenement  next 
to  that  in  which  Albano's  shop  was. 

"Walter,"  he  whispered,  "just  get  the  children 
away  for  a  minute  now." 

"Look  here,  you  kids,"  I  yelled,  "some  of  you 
will  fall  off  if  you  get  so  close  to  the  edge  of  the 
roof.  Keep  back." 


THE   BLACK  HAND  301 

It  had  no  effect.  Apparently  they  looked  not 
a  bit  frightened  at  the  dizzy  mass  of  clothes-lines 
below  us. 

"Say,  is  there  a  candy-store  on  this  block?"  I 
asked  in  desperation. 

"Yes,  sir,"  came  the  chorus. 

"Who'll  go  down  and  get  me  a  bottle  of  gin- 
ger ale?"  I  asked. 

A  chorus  of  voices  and  glittering  eyes  was  the 
answer.  They  all  would.  I  took  a  half-dollar 
from  my  pocket  and  gave  it  to  the  oldest. 

"All  right  now,  hustle  along,  and  divide  the 
change. ' ' 

With  the  scamper  of  many  feet  they  were  gone, 
and  we  were  alone.  Kennedy  had  now  reached 
Albano  's,  and  as  soon  as  the  last  head  had  disap- 
peared below  the  scuttle  of  the  roof  he  dropped 
two  long  strands  down  into  the  back  yard,  as  he 
had  done  at  Vincenzo's. 

I  started  to  go  back,  but  he  stopped  me. 

"Oh,  that  will  never  do,"  he  said.  "The  kids 
will  see  that  the  wires  end  here.  I  must  carry 
them  on  several  houses  farther  as  a  blind  and 
trust  to  luck  that  they  don't  see  the  wires  leading 
down  below." 

We  were  several  houses  down,  still  putting  up 
wires  when  the  crowd  came  shouting  back,  sticky 
with  cheap  trust-made  candy  and  black  with  East 
Side  chocolate.  We  opened  the  ginger  ale  and 
forced  ourselves  to  drink  it  so  as  to  excite  no  sus- 


302  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

picion,  then  a  few  minutes  later  descended  the 
stairs  of  the  tenement,  coming  out  just  above 
Albano  's. 

I  was  wondering  how  Kennedy  was  going  to 
get  into  Albano 's  again  without  exciting  sus- 
picion. He  solved  it  neatly. 

"Now,  Walter,  do  you  think  you  could  stand 
another  dip  into  that  red  ink  of  Albano 's?" 

I  said  I  might  in  the  interests  of  science  and 
justice — not  otherwise. 

"Well,  your  face  is  sufficiently  dirty,"  he  com- 
mented, "so  that  with  the  overalls  you  don't  look 
very  much  as  you  did  the  first  time  you  went  in. 
I  don't  think  they  will  recognise  you.  Do  I  look 
pretty  good?" 

"You  look  like  a  coal-heaver  out  of  a  job,"  I 
said.  "I  can  scarcely  restrain  my  admiration." 

"All  right.  Then  take  this  little  glass  bottle. 
Go  into  the  back  room  and  order  something  cheap, 
in  keeping  with  your  looks.  Then  when  you  are 
all  alone  break  the  bottle.  It  is  full  of  gas  drip- 
pings. Your  nose  will  dictate  what  to  do  next. 
Just  tell  the  proprietor  you  saw  the  gas  com- 
pany's wagon  on  the  next  block  and  come  up 
here  and  tell  me." 

I  entered.  There  was  a  sinister-looking  man, 
with  a  sort  of  unscrupulous  intelligence,  writing 
at  a  table.  As  he  wrote  and  puffed  at  his  cigar, 
I  noticed  a  scar  on  his  face,  a  deep  furrow  run- 
ning from  the  lobe  of  his  ear  to  his  mouth.  That, 


THE   BLACK   HAND  303 

I  knew,  was  a  brand  set  upon  him  by  the  Camorra. 
I  sat  and  smoked  and  sipped  slowly  for  several 
minutes,  cursing  him  inwardly  more  for  his  pres- 
ence than  for  his  evident  look  of  the  "mala  vita." 
At  last  he  went  out  to  ask  the  barkeeper  for  a 
stamp. 

Quickly  I  tiptoed  over  to  another  corner  of  the 
room  and  ground  the  little  bottle  under  my  heel. 
Then  I  resumed  my  seat.  The  odour  that  per- 
vaded the  room  was  sickening. 

The  sinister-looking  man  with  the  scar  came 
in  again  and  sniffed.  I  sniffed.  Then  the  pro- 
prietor came  in  and  sniffed. 

"Say,"  I  said  in  the  toughest  voice  I  could 
assume,  "you  got  a  leak.  Wait.  I  seen  the  gas 
company  wagon  on  the  next  block  when  I  came 
in.  I'll  get  the  man." 

I  dashed  out  and  hurried  up  the  street  to  the 
place  where  Kennedy  was  waiting  impatiently. 
Rattling  his  tools,  he  followed  me  with  apparent 
reluctance. 

As  he  entered  the  wine-shop  he  snorted,  after 
the  manner  of  gas-men,  "Where's  de  leak?" 

"You  find-a  da  leak,"  grunted  Albano. 
"What-a  you  get-a  you  pay  for?  You  want-a  me 
do  your  work?" 

"Well,  half  a  dozen  o'  you  wops  get  out  o* 
here,  that's  all.  D'youse  all  wanter  be  blown  ter 
pieces  wid  dem  pipes  and  cigarettes?  Clear 
out,"  growled  Kennedy. 


304  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

They  retreated  precipitately,  and  Craig  hastily 
opened  his  bag  of  tools. 

" Quick,  Walter,  shut  the  door  and  hold  it," 
exclaimed  Craig,  working  rapidly.  He  unwrap- 
ped a  little  package  and  took  out  a  round,  flat 
disc-like  thing  of  black  vulcanised  rubber.  Jump- 
ing up  on  a  table,  he  fixed  it  to  the  top  of  the 
reflector  over  the  gas-jet. 

"Can  you  see  that  from  the  floor,  Walter!"  he 
asked  under  his  breath. 

"No,"  I  replied,  "not  even  when  I  know  it  is 
there." 

Then  he  attached  a  couple  of  wires  to  it  and 
led  them  across  the  ceiling  toward  the  window, 
concealing  them  carefully  by  sticking  them  in  the 
shadow  of  a  beam.  At  the  window  he  quickly 
attached  the  wires  to  the  two  that  were  dangling 
down  from  the  roof  and  shoved  them  around  out 
of  sight. 

"We'll  have  to  trust  that  no  one  sees  them," 
he  said.  "That's  the  best  I  can  do  at  such  short 
notice.  I  never  saw  a  room  so  bare  as  this,  any- 
way. There  isn't  another  place  I  could  put  that 
thing  without  its  being  seen." 

We  gathered  up  the  broken  glass  of  the  gas- 
drippings  bottle,  and  I  opened  the  door. 

"It's  all  right,  now,"  said  Craig,  sauntering 
out  before  the  bar.  "Only  de  next  time  you  has 
any t 'ing  de  matter  call  de  company  up.  I  ain't 
supposed  to  do  dis  wit 'out  orders,  see!" 


THE   BLACK  HAND  305 

A  moment  later  I  followed,  glad  to  get  out  of 
the  oppressive  atmosphere,  and  joined  him  in  the 
back  of  Vincenzo's  drug-store,  where  he  was 
again  at  work.  As  there  was  no  back  window 
there,  it  was  quite  a  job  to  lead  the  wires  around 
the  outside  from  the  back  yard  and  in  at  a  side 
window.  It  was  at  last  done,  however,  without 
exciting  suspicion,  and  Kennedy  attached  them  to 
an  oblong  box  of  weathered  oak  and  a  pair  of 
specially  constructed  dry  batteries. 

"Now,"  said  Craig,  as  we  washed  off  the  stains 
of  work  and  stowed  the  overalls  back  in  the  suit- 
case, "that  is  done  to  my  satisfaction.  I  can  tell 
Gennaro  to  go  ahead  safely  now  and  meet  the 
Black-Handers." 

From  Vincenzo's  we  walked  over  toward  Cen- 
tre Street,  where  Kennedy  and  I  left  Luigi  to 
return  to  his  restaurant,  with  instructions  to  be 
at  Vincenzo's  at  half-past  eleven  that  night. 

We  turned  into  the  new  police  headquarters 
and  went  down  the  long  corridor  to  the  Italian 
Bureau.  Kennedy  sent  in  his  card  to  Lieutenant 
Giuseppe  in  charge,  and  we  were  quickly  admit- 
ted. The  lieutenant  was  a  short,  full-faced, 
fleshy  Italian,  with  lightish  hair  and  eyes  that 
were  apparently  dull,  until  you  suddenly  dis- 
covered that  that  was  merely  a  cover  to  their 
really  restless  way  of  taking  in  everything  and 
fixing  the  impressions  on  his  mind,  as  if  on  a  sen- 
sitive plate. 


306  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"I  want  to  talk  about  the  Gennaro  case,"  began 
Craig.  "I  may  add  that  I  have  been  rather 
closely  associated  with  Inspector  0  'Connor  of  the 
Central  Office  on  a  number  of  cases,  so  that  I  think 
we  can  trust  each  other.  Would  you  mind  telling 
me  what  you  know  about  it  if  I  promise  you  that 
I,  too,  have  something  to  reveal?" 

The  lieutenant  leaned  back  and  watched  Ken- 
nedy closely  without  seeming  to  do  so.  "When 
I  was  in  Italy  last  year,"  he  replied  at  length,  "I 
did  a  good  deal  of  work  in  tracing  up  some 
Camorra  suspects.  I  had  a  tip  about  some  of 
them  to  look  up  their  records — I  needn't  say 
where  it  came  from,  but  it  was  a  good  one.  Much 
of  the  evidence  against  some  of  those  fellows  who 
are  being  tried  at  Viterbo  was  gathered  by  the 
Carabinieri  as  a  result  of  hints  that  I  was  able 
to  give  them — clues  that  were  furnished  to  me 
here  in  America  from  the  source  I  speak  of.  I 
suppose  there  is  really  no  need  to  conceal  it, 
though.  The  original  tip  came  from  a  certain 
banker  here  in  New  York." 

"I  can  guess  who  it  was,"  nodded  Craig. 

"Then,  as  you  know,  this  banker  is  a  fighter. 
He  is  the  man  who  organised  the  White  Hand — 
an  organisation  which  is  trying  to  rid  the  Italian 
population  of  the  Black  Hand.  His  society  had 
a  lot  of  evidence  regarding  former  members  of 
both  the  Camorra  in  Naples  and  the  Mafia  in 
Sicily,  as  well  as  the  Black  Hand  gangs  in  New 


THE   BLACK   HAND  307 

York,  Chicago,  and  other  cities.    Well,  Cesare, 
as  you  know,  is  Gennaro's  father-in-law. 

"While  I  was  in  Naples  looking  up  the  record 
of  a  certain  criminal  I  heard  of  a  peculiar  murder 
committed  some  years  ago.  There  was  an  honest 
old  music  master  who  apparently  lived  the  quiet- 
est and  most  harmless  of  lives.  But  it  became 
known  that  he  was  supported  by  Cesare  and  had 
received  handsome  presents  of  money  from  him. 
The  old  man  was,  as  you  may  have  guessed,  the 
first  music  teacher  of  Gennaro,  the  man  who  dis- 
covered him.  One  might  have  been  at  a  loss  to 
see  how  he  could  have  an  enemy,  but  there  was 
one  who  coveted  his  small  fortune.  One  day  he 
was  stabbed  and  robbed.  His  murderer  ran  out 
into  the  street,  crying  out  that  the  poor  man  had 
been  killed.  Naturally  a  crowd  rushed  up  in  a 
moment,  for  it  was  in  the  middle  of  the  day. 
Before  the  injured  man  could  make  it  understood 
who  had  struck  him  the  assassin  was  down  the 
street  and  lost  in  the  maze  of  old  Naples  where 
he  well  knew  the  houses  of  his  friends  who  would 
hide  him.  The  man  who  is  known  to  have  com- 
mitted that  crime — Francesco  Paoli — escaped  to 
New  York.  We  are  looking  for  him  to-day.  He 
is  a  clever  man,  far  above  the  average — son  of  a 
doctor  in  a  town  a  few  miles  from  Naples,  went 
to  the  university,  was  expelled  for  some  mad 
prank — in  short,  he  was  the  black  sheep  of  the 
family.  Of  course  over  here  he  is  too  high-born 


308  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

to  work  with  his  hands  on  a  railroad  or  in  a 
trench,  and  not  educated  enough  to  work  at  any- 
thing else.  So  he  has  been  preying  on  his  more 
industrious  countrymen — a  typical  case  of  a  man 
living  by  his  wits  with  no  visible  •  means  of  sup- 
port. 

"Now  I  don't  mind  telling  you  in  strict  confi- 
dence," continued  the  lieutenant,  "that  it's  my 
theory  that  old  Cesar e  has  seen  Paoli  here,  knew 
he  was  wanted  for  that  murder  of  the  old  music 
master,  and  gave  me  the  tip  to  look  up  his  record. 
At  any  rate  Paoli  disappeared  right  after  I 
returned  from  Italy,  and  we  haven't  been  able  to 
locate  him  since.  He  must  have  found  out  in  some 
way  that  the  tip  to  look  him  up  had  been  given 
by  the  White  Hand.  He  had  been  a  Camorrista, 
in  Italy,  and  had  many  ways  of  getting  informa- 
tion here  in  America." 

He  paused,  and  balanced  a  piece  of  cardboard 
in  his  hand. 

"It  is  my  theory  of  this  case  that  if  we  could 
locate  this  Paoli  we  could  solve  the  kidnapping  of 
little  Adelina  Gennaro  very  quickly.  That's  his 
picture." 

Kennedy  and  I  bent  over  to  look  at  it,  and  I 
started  in  surprise.  It  was  my  evil-looking  friend 
with  the  scar  on  his  cheek. 

"Well,"  said  Craig,  quietly  handing  back  the 
card,  "whether  or  not  he  is  the  man,  I  know  where 
we  can  catch  the  kidnappers  to-night.  Lieutenant. ' ' 


THE   BLACK   HAND  309 

It  was  Giuseppe's  turn  to  show  surprise  now. 

"With  your  assistance  I'll  get  this  man  and  the 
whole  gang  to-night,"  explained  Craig,  rapidly 
sketching  over  his  plan  and  concealing  just 
enough  to  make  sure  that  no  matter  how  anxious 
the  lieutenant  was  to  get  the  credit  he  could  not 
spoil  the  affair  by  premature  interference. 

The  final  arrangement  was  that  four  of  the  best 
men  of  the  squad  were  to  hide  in  a  vacant  store 
across  from  Vincenzo  's  early  in  the  evening,  long 
before  anyone  was  watching.  The  signal  for 
them  to  appear  was  to  be  the  extinguishing  of  the 
lights  behind  the  coloured  bottles  in  the  druggist's 
window.  A  taxicab  was  to  be  kept  waiting  at 
headquarters  at  the  same  time  with  three  other 
good  men  ready  to  start  for  a  given  address  the 
moment  the  alarm  was  given  over  the  telephone. 

We  found  Gennaro  awaiting  us  with  the  great- 
est anxiety  at  the  opera-house.  The  bomb  at 
Cesare's  had  been  the  last  straw.  Gennaro  had 
already  drawn  from  his  bank  ten  crisp  one- 
thousand-dollar  bills,  and  already  had  a  copy 
of  II  Progresso  in  which  he  had  hidden  the  money 
between  the  sheets. 

"Mr.  Kennedy,"  he  said,  "I  am  going  to  meet 
them  to-night.  They  may  kill  me.  See,  I  have 
provided  myself  with  a  pistol — I  shall  fight,  too, 
if  necessary  for  my  little  Adelina.  But  if  it  is 
only  money  they  want,  they  shall  have  it." 

"One  thing  I  want  to  say,"  began  Kennedy. 


310  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"No,  no,  no!"  cried  the  tenor.  "I  will  go — 
you  shall  not  stop  me." 

"I  don't  wish  to  stop  you,"  Craig  reassured 
him.  "But  one  thing — do  exactly  as  I  tell  you, 
and  I  swear  not  a  hair  of  the  child's  head  will  be 
injured  and  we  will  get  the  blackmailers,  too." 

"How?"  eagerly  asked  Gennaro.  "What  do 
you  want  me  to  do?" 

"All  I  want  you  to  do  is  to  go  to  Albano's  at 
the  appointed  time.  Sit  down  in  the  back  room. 
Get  into  conversation  with  them,  and,  above  all, 
Signer,  as  soon  as  you  get  the  copy  of  the 
Bolletino  turn  to  the  third  page,  pretend  not  to  be 
able  to  read  the  address.  Ask  the  man  to  read  it. 
Then  repeat  it  after  him.  Pretend  to  be  over- 
joyed. Offer  to  set  up  wine  for  the  whole  crowd. 
Just  a  few  minutes,  that  is  all  I  ask,  and  I  will 
guarantee  that  you  will  be  the  happiest  man  in 
New  York  to-morrow. ' ' 

Gennaro 's  eyes  filled  with  tears  as  he  grasped 
Kennedy 's  hand.  '  *  That  is  better  than  having  the 
whole  police  force  back  of  me,"  he  said.  "I  shall 
never  forget,  never  forget." 

As  we  went  out  Kennedy  remarked:  "You  can't 
blame  them  for  keeping  their  troubles  to  them- 
selves. Here  we  send  a  police  officer  over  to 
Italy  to  look  up  the  records  of  some  of  the  worst 
suspects.  He  loses  his  life.  Another  takes  his 
place.  Then  after  he  gets  back  he  is  set  to  work 
on  the  mere  clerical  routine  of  translating  them. 


THE   BLACK  HAND  311 

One  of  his  associates  is  reduced  in  rank.  And  so 
what  does  it  come  to  ?  Hundreds  of  records  have 
become  useless  because  the  three  years  within 
which  the  criminals  could  be  deported  have 
elapsed  with  nothing  done.  Intelligent,  isn't  it? 
I  believe  it  has  been  established  that  all  but  about 
fifty  of  seven  hundred  known  Italian  suspects  are 
still  at  large,  mostly  in  this  city.  And  the  rest  of 
the  Italian  population  is  guarded  from  them  by  a 
squad  of  police  in  number  scarcely  one-thirtieth 
of  the  number  of  known  criminals.  No,  it's  our 
fault  if  the  Black  Hand  thrives." 

We  had  been  standing  on  the  corner  of  Broad- 
way, waiting  for  a  car. 

"Now,  Walter,  don't  forget.  Meet  me  at  the 
Bleecker  Street  station  of  the  subway  at  eleven- 
thirty.  I'm  off  to  the  university.  I  have  some 
very  important  experiments  with  phosphorescent 
salts  that  I  want  to  finish  to-day." 

"What  has  that  to  do  with  the  case?"  I  asked 
mystified. 

"Nothing,"  replied  Craig.  "I  didn't  say  it 
had.  At  eleven-thirty,  don't  forget.  By  George, 
though,  that  Paoli  must  be  a  clever  one — think  of 
his  knowing  about  ricin.  I  only  heard  of  it  my- 
self recently.  Well,  here's  my  car.  Good-bye." 

Craig  swung  aboard  an  Amsterdam  Avenue  car, 
leaving  me  to  kill  eight  nervous  hours  of  my 
weekly  day  of  rest  from  the  Star. 

They  passed  at  length,  and  at  precisely  the 


312  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

appointed  time  Kennedy  and  I  met.  With  sup- 
pressed excitement,  at  least  on  my  part,  we  walked 
over  to  Vincenzo's.  At  night  this  section  of  the 
city  was  indeed  a  black  enigma.  The  lights  in  the 
shops  where  olive  oil,  fruit,  and  other  things  were 
sold,  were  winking  out  one  by  one ;  here  and  there 
strains  of  music  floated  out  of  wine-shops,  and 
little  groups  lingered  on  corners  conversing  in 
animated  sentences.  We  passed  Albano's  on  the 
other  side  of  the  street,  being  careful  not  to  look 
at  it  too  closely,  for  several  men  were  hanging  idly 
about — pickets,  apparently,  with  some  secret  code 
that  would  instantly  have  spread  far  and  wide 
the  news  of  any  alarming  action. 

At  the  corner  we  crossed  and  looked  in  Vin- 
cenzo  's  window  a  moment,  casting  a  furtive  glance* 
across  the  street  at  the  dark  empty  store  where 
the  police  must  be  hiding.  Then  we  went  in  and 
casually  sauntered  back  of  the  partition.  Luigi 
was  there  already.  There  were  several  customers 
still  in  the  store,  however,  and  therefore  we  had 
to  sit  in  silence  while  Vincenzo  quickly  finished  a 
prescription  and  waited  on  the  last  one. 

At  last  the  doors  were  locked  and  the  lights 
lowered,  all  except  those  in  the  windows  which 
were  to  serve  as  signals. 

"Ten  minutes  to  twelve,"  said  Kennedy,  plac- 
ing the  oblong  box  on  the  table.  "Gennaro  will 
be  going  in  soon.  Let  us  try  this  machine  now 
and  see  if  it  works.  If  the  wires  have  been  cut 


THE   BLACK  HAND  313 

since  we  put  them  up  this  morning  Gennaro  will 
have  to  take  his  chances  alone." 

Kennedy  reached  over  and  with  a  light  move- 
ment of  his  forefinger  touched  a  switch. 

Instantly  a  babel  of  voices  filled  the  store,  all 
talking  at  once,  rapidly  and  loudly.  Here  and 
there  we  could  distinguish  a  snatch  of  conversa- 
tion, a  word,  a  phrase,  now  and  then  even  a  whole 
sentence  above  the  rest.  There  was  the  clink  of 
glasses.  I  could  hear  the  rattle  of  dice  on  a  bare 
table,  and  an  oath.  A  cork  popped.  Somebody 
scratched  a  match. 

We  sat  bewildered,  looking  at  Kennedy  for  an 
explanation. 

"Imagine  that  you  are  sitting  at  a  table  in 
Albano's  back  room,"  was  all  he  said.  "This  is 
what  you  would  be  hearing.  This  is  my  'electric 
ear' — in  other  words  the  dictograph,  used,  I  am 
told,  by  the  Secret  Service  of  the  United  States. 
Wait,  in  a  moment  you  will  hear  Gennaro  come 
in.  Luigi  and  Vincenzo,  translate  what  you  hear. 
My  knowledge  of  Italian  is  pretty  rusty." 

"Can  they  hear  us?"  whispered  Luigi  in  an 
awe-struck  whisper. 

Craig  laughed.  ' '  No,  not  yet.  But  I  have  only 
to  touch  this  other  switch,  and  I  could  produce  an 
effect  in  that  room  that  would  rival  the  famous 
writing  on  Belshazzar's  wall — only  it  would  be  a 
voice  from  the  wall  instead  of  writing." 

"They  seem  to  be  waiting  for  someone,"  said 


314  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

Vincenzo.    "I  heard  somebody  say:  'He  will  be 
here  in  a  few  minutes.    Now  get  out.'  ' 

The  babel  of  voices  seemed  to  calm  down  as  men 
withdrew  from  the  room.  Only  one  or  two  were 
left. 

"One  of  them  says  the  child  is  all  right.  She 
has  been  left  in  the  back  yard,"  translated  Luigi. 

"What  yard?     Did  he  say?"  asked  Kennedy. 

"No;  they  just  speak  of  it  as  the  'yard,'  "  re- 
plied Luigi. 

"Jameson,  go  outside  in  the  store  to  the  tele- 
phone booth  and  call  up  headquarters.  Ask  them 
if  the  automobile  is  ready,  with  the  men  in  it." 

I  rang  up,  and  after  a  moment  the  police  central 
answered  that  everything  was  right. 

"Then  tell  central  to  hold  the  line  clear — we 
mustn't  lose  a  moment.  Jameson,  you  stay  in  the 
booth.  Vincenzo,  you  pretend  to  be  working 
around  your  window,  but  not  in  such  a  way  as  to 
attract  attention,  for  they  have  men  watching  the 
street  very  carefully.  What  is  it,  Luigi?" 

"Gennaro  is  coming.  I  just  heard  one  of  them 
say,  'Here  he  comes.'  " 

Even  from  the  booth  I  could  hear  the  dicto- 
graph repeating  the  conversation  in  the  dingy 
little  back  room  of  Albano's,  down  the  street. 

"He's  ordering  a  bottle  of  red  wine,"  mur- 
mured Luigi,  dancing  up  and  down  with  excite- 
ment. 

Vincenzo  was  so  nervous  that  he  knocked  a 


THE   BLACK   HAND  315 

bottle  down  in  the  window,  and  I  believe  that  my 
heart-beats  were  almost  audible  over  the  tele- 
phone which  I  was  holding,  for  the  police  operator 
called  me  down  for  asking  so  many  times  if  all 
was  ready. 

"There  it  is— the  signal,"  cried  Craig.  "  'A! 
fine  opera  is  "I  Pagliacci."  '  Now  listen  for  the 
answer." 

A  moment  elapsed,  then,  "Not  without  Gen- 
naro,"  came  a  gruff  voice  in  Italian  from  the 
dictograph. 

A  silence  ensued.    It  was  tense. 

"Wait,  wait,"  said  a  voice  which  I  recognised 
instantly  as  Gennaro's.  "I  cannot  read  this. 
.What  is  this,  23i/2  Prince  Street!" 

"No,  331/2-  She  has  been  left  in  the  back  yard," 
answered  the  voice. 

"Jameson,"  called  Craig,  "tell  them  to  drive 
straight  to  33i/2  Prince  Street.  They  will  find  the 
girl  in  the  back  yard — quick,  before  the  Black- 
Handers  have  a  chance  to  go  back  on  their  word." 

I  fairly  shouted  my  orders  to  the  police  head- 
quarters. "They're  off,"  came  back  the  answer, 
and  I  hung  up  the  receiver. 

"What  was  that!"  Craig  was  asking  of  Luigi. 
< '  I  didn  't  catch  it.  What  did  they  say  ?  " 

"That  other  voice  said  to  Gennaro,  'Sit  down 
while  I  count  this/  " 

"Sh!  he's  talking  again." 

"If  it  is  a  penny  less  than  ten  thousand  or  I 


316  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

find  a  mark  on  the  bills  I'll  call  to  Enrico,  and 
your  daughter  will  be  spirited  away  again," 
translated  Luigi. 

*  *  Now,  Gennaro  is  talking, ' '  said  Craig.  c '  Good 
— he  is  gaining  time.  He  is  a  trump.  I  can  dis- 
tinguish that  all  right.  He's  asking  the  gruff- 
voiced  fellow  if  he  will  have  another  bottle  of 
wine.  He  says  he  will.  Good.  They  must  be  at 
Prince  Street  now — we'll  give  them  a  few  minutes 
more,  not  too  much,  for  word  will  be  back  to 
Albano's  like  wildfire,  and  they  will  get  Gennaro 
after  all.  Ah,  they  are  drinking  again.  What 
was  that,  Luigi?  The  money  is  all  right,  he  says? 
Now,  Vincenzo,  out  with  the  lights !" 

A  door  banged  open  across  the  street,  and  four 
huge  dark  figures  darted  out  in  the  direction  of 
Albano's. 

With  his  finger  Kennedy  pulled  down  the  other 
switch  and  shouted:  "Gennaro,  this  is  Kennedy! 
To  the  street!  Polizia!  Polizia!" 

A  scuffle  and  a  cry  of  surprise  followed.  A 
second  voice,  apparently  from  the  bar,  shouted, 
"Out  with  the  lights,  out  with  the  lights!" 

Bang!  went  a  pistol,  and  another. 

The  dictograph,  which  had  been  all  sound  a 
moment  before,  was  as  mute  as  a  cigar-box. 

"What's  the  matter?"  I  asked  Kennedy,  as  he 
rushed  past  me. 

"They  have  shot  out  the  lights.  My  receiving 
instrument  is  destroyed.  Come  on,  Jameson; 


THE   BLACK   HAND  317 

Vincenzo,  stay  back,  if  you  don't  want  to  appear 
in  this." 

A  short  figure  rushed  by  me,  faster  even  than 
I  could  go.  It  was  the  faithful  Luigi. 

In  front  of  Albano  's  an  exciting  fight  was  going 
on.  Shots  were  being  fired  wildly  in  the  dark- 
ness, and  heads  were  popping  out  of  tenement 
windows  on  all  sides.  As  Kennedy  and  I  flung 
ourselves  into  the  crowd  we  caught  a  glimpse  of 
Gennaro,  with  blood  streaming  from  a  cut  on  his 
shoulder,  struggling  with  a  policeman  while  Luigi 
vainly  was  trying  to  interpose  himself  between 
them.  A  man,  held  by  another  policeman,  was 
urging  the  first  officer  on.  "That's  the  man,"  he 
was  crying.  "That's  the  kidnapper.  I  caught 
him." 

In  a  moment  Kennedy  was  behind  him.  "Pa- 
oli,  you  lie.  You  are  the  kidnapper.  Seize  him — > 
he  has  the  money  on  him.  That  other  is  Gen- 
naro himself." 

The  policeman  released  the  tenor,  and  both  of 
them  seized  Paoli.  The  others  were  beating  at 
the  door,  which  was  being  frantically  barricaded 
inside. 

Just  then  a  taxicab  came  swinging  up  the 
street.  Three  men  jumped  out  and  added  their 
strength  to  those  who  were  battering  down  Al- 
bano's  barricade. 

Gennaro,  with  a  cry,  leaped  into  the  taxicab. 
Over  his  shoulder  I  could  see  a  tangled  mass  of 


318  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

dark  brown  curls,  and  a  childish  voice  lisped: 
"Why  didn't  you  come  for  me,  papa?  The  bad 
man  told  me  if  I  waited  in  the  yard  you  would 
come  for  me.  But  if  I  cried  he  said  he  would 
shoot  me.  And  I  waited,  and  waited — " 

"There,  there,  'Lina;  papa's  going  to  take  you 
straight  home  to  mother." 

A  crash  followed  as  the  door  yielded,  and  the 
famous  Paoli  gang  was  in  the  hands  of  the  law. 


XI 

THE  ARTIFICIAL  PAEADISE 

IT  was,  I  recall,  at  that  period  of  the  late  un- 
pleasantness in  the  little  Central  American  re- 
public of  Vespuccia,  when  things  looked  darkest 
for  American  investors,  that  I  hurried  home  one 
evening  to  Kennedy,  bursting  with  news. 

By  way  of  explanation,  I  may  add  that  during 
the  rubber  boom  Kennedy  had  invested  in  stock 
of  a  rubber  company  in  Vespuccia,  and  that  its 
value  had  been  shrinking  for  some  time  with  that 
elasticity  which  a  rubber  band  shows  when  one 
party  suddenly  lets  go  his  end.  Kennedy  had 
been  in  danger  of  being  snapped  rather  hard  by 
the  recoil,  and  I  knew  he  had  put  in  an  order  with 
his  broker  to  sell  and  take  his  loss  when  a  certain 
figure  was  reached.  My  news  was  a  first  ray  of 
light  in  an  otherwise  dark  situation,  and  I  wanted 
to  advise  him  to  cancel  the  selling  order  and  stick 
for  a  rise. 

Accordingly  I  hurried  unceremoniously  into 
our  apartment  with  the  words  on  my  lips  before 
I  had  fairly  closed  the  door.  "What  do  you 
think,  Craig?"  I  shouted.  "It  is  rumoured  that 
the  revolutionists  have  captured  half  a  million 

319 


320  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

dollars  from  the  government  and  are  sending  it 
to — "  I  stopped  short.  I  had  no  idea  that 
Kennedy  had  a  client,  and  a  girl,  too. 

With  a  hastily  mumbled  apology  I  checked  my- 
self and  backed  out  toward  my  own  room.  I  may 
as  well  confess  that  I  did  not  retreat  very  fast, 
however.  Kennedy's  client  was  not  only  a 
girl,  but  a  very  pretty  one,  I  found,  as  she 
turned  her  head  quickly  at  my  sudden  entrance 
and  betrayed  a  lively  interest  at  the  mention  of 
the  revolution.  She  was  a  Latin-American,  and 
the  Latin-American  type  of  feminine  beauty  is 
fascinating — at  least  to  me.  I  did  not  retreat 
very  fast. 

As  I  hoped,  Kennedy  rose  to  the  occasion. 
"Miss  Guerrero,''  he  said,  "let  me  introduce  Mr. 
Jameson,  who  has  helped  me  very  much  in  solv- 
ing some  of  my  most  difficult  cases.  Miss  Guer- 
rero's father,  Walter,  is  the  owner  of  a  planta- 
tion which  sells  its  product  to  the  company  I  am 
interested  in." 

She  bowed  graciously,  but  there  was  a  moment 
of  embarrassment  until  Kennedy  came  to  the  res- 
cue. 

"I  shall  need  Mr.  Jameson  in  handling  your 
case,  Miss  Guerrero,"  he  explained.  "Would  it 
be  presuming  to  ask  you  to  repeat  to  him  briefly 
what  you  have  already  told  me  about  the  mysteri- 
ous disappearance  of  your  father?  Perhaps 
some  additional  details  will  occur  to  you,  things 


THE   AKTIFICIAL  PAEADISE       321 

that  you  may  consider  trivial,  but  which,  I  assure 
you,  may  be  of  the  utmost  importance." 

She  assented,  and  in  a  low,  tremulous,  musical 
voice  bravely  went  through  her  story. 

"We  come,"  she  began,  "my  father  and  I — 
for  my  mother  died  when  I  was  a  little  girl — we 
come  from  the  northern  part  of  Vespuccia,  where 
foreign  capitalists  are  much  interested  in  the  in- 
troduction of  a  new  rubber  plant.  I  am  an  only 
child  and  have  been  the  constant  companion  of 
my  father  for  years,  ever  since  I  could  ride  a 
pony,  going  with  him  about  our  hacienda  and  on 
business  trips  to  Europe  and  the  States. 

"I  may  as  well  say  at  the  start,  Mr.  Jameson, 
that  although  my  father  is  a  large  land-owner, 
he  has  very  liberal  political  views  and  is  deeply 
in  sympathy  with  the  revolution  that  is  now 
going  on  in  Vespuccia.  In  fact,  we  were  forced 
to  flee  very  early  in  the  trouble,  and  as  there 
seemed  to  be  more  need  of  his  services  here  in 
New  York  than  in  any  of  the  neighbouring  coun- 
tries, we  came  here.  So  you  see  that  if  the  rev- 
olution is  not  successful  his  estate  will  probably 
be  confiscated  and  we  shall  be  penniless.  He  is 
the  agent — the  head  of  the  junta,  I  suppose  you 
would  call  it — here  in  New  York." 

"Engaged  in  purchasing  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion," put  in  Kennedy,  as  she  paused,  "and  see- 
ing that  they  are  shipped  safely  to  New  Orleans 
as  'agricultural  machinery,'  where  another  agent 


322  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

receives  them  and  attends  to  their  safe  transit 
across  the  Gulf." 

She  nodded  and  after  a  moment  resumed: 
"There  is  quite  a  little  colony  of  Vespuccians 
here  in  New  York,  both  revolutionists  and  gov- 
ernment supporters.  I  suppose  that  neither  of 
you  has  any  idea  of  the  intriguing  that  is  going 
on  under  the  peaceful  surface  right  here  in  your 
own  city.  But  there  is  much  of  it,  more  than 
even  I  know  or  can  tell  you.  Well,  my  father 
lately  has  been  acting  very  queerly.  There  is  a 
group  who  meet  frequently  at  the  home  of  a  Se- 
nora Mendez — an  insurrecto  group,  of  course.  I 
do  not  go,  for  they  are  all  much  older  people  than 
I.  I  know  the  senora  well,  but  I — I  prefer  a  dif- 
ferent kind  of  person.  My  friends  are  younger 
and  perhaps  more  radical,  more  in  earnest  about 
the  future  of  Vespuccia. 

"For  some  weeks  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  this 
Senora  Mendez  has  had  too  much  influence  over 
my  father.  He  does  not  seem  like  the  same  man 
he  used  to  be.  Indeed,  some  of  the  junta  who  do 
not  frequent  the  house  of  the  senora  have  re- 
marked it.  He  seems  moody,  works  by  starts, 
then  will  neglect  nis  work  entirely.  Often  I  see 
him  with  his  eyes  closed,  apparently  sitting 
quietly,  oblivious  to  the  progress  of  the  cause — 
the  only  cause  now  which  can  restore  us  our  es- 
tate. 

"The  other  day  we  lost  an  entire  shipment  of 


THE   AKTIFICIAL  PARADISE       323 

arms — the  Secret  Service  captured  them  on  the 
way  from  the  warehouse  on  South  Street  to  the 
steamer  which  was  to  take  them  to  New  Orleans. 
Only  once  before  had  it  happened,  when  my 
father  did  not  understand  all  the  things  to  con- 
ceal. Then  he  was  frantic  for  a  week.  But  this 
time  he  seems  not  to  care.  Ah,  senores,"  she 
said,  dropping  her  voice,  "I  fear  there  was  some 
treachery  there." 

"Treachery?"  I  asked.  "And  have  you  any 
suspicions  who  might  have  played  informer?" 

She  hesitated.  "I  may  as  well  tell  you  just 
what  I  suspect.  I  fear  that  the  hold  of  Senora 
Mendez  is  somehow  or  other  concerned  with  it 
all.  I  even  have  suspected  that  somehow  she 
may  be  working  in  the  pay  of  the  government — 
that  she  is  a  vampire,  living  on  the  secrets  of  the 
group  who  so  trust  her.  I  suspect  anything, 
everybody — that  she  is  poisoning  his  mind,  per- 
haps even  whispering  into  his  ear  some  siren 
proposal  of  amnesty  and  his  estate  again,  if  he 
will  but  do  what  she  asks.  My  poor  father — I 
must  save  him  from  himself  if  it  is  necessary. 
Argument  has  no  effect  with  him.  He  merely 
answers  that  the  senora  is  a  talented  and  accom- 
plished woman,  and  laughs  a  vacant  laugh  when 
I  hint  to  him  to  beware.  I  hate  her." 

The  fiery  animosity  of  her  dark  eyes  boded  ill, 
I  felt,  for  the  senora.  But  it  flashed  over  me 
that  perhaps,  after  all,  the  senora  was  not  a 


324  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

traitress,  but  bad  simply  been  scheming  to  win 
the  heart  and  hence  the  hacienda  of  the  great 
land-owner,  when  he  came  into  possession  of  his 
estate  if  the  revolution  proved  successful. 

''And  finally,"  she  concluded,  keeping  back 
the  tears  by  an  heroic  effort,  "last  night  he  left 
our  apartment,  promising  to  return  early  in  the 
evening.  It  is  now  twenty-four  hours,  and  I  have 
heard  not  a  word  from  him.  It  is  the  first  time 
in  my  life  that  we  have  ever  been  separated  so 
long." 

"And  you  have  no  idea  where  he  could  have 
gone!"  asked  Craig. 

"Only  what  I  have  learned  from  Senor  Tor- 
reon,  another  member  of  the  junta.  Senor  Tor- 
reon  said  this  morning  that  he  left  the  home  of 
Senora  Mendez  last  night  about  ten  o'clock  in 
company  with  my  father.  He  says  they  parted 
at  the  subway,  as  they  lived  on  different  branches 
of  the  road.  Professor  Kennedy,"  she  added, 
springing  up  and  clasping  her  hands  tightly  in  an 
appeal  that  was  irrestible,  "you  know  what  steps 
to  take  to  find  him.  I  trust  all  to  you — even  the 
calling  on  the  police,  though  I  think  it  would  be 
best  if  we  could  get  along  without  them.  Find 
my  father,  senores,  and  when  we  come  into  our 
own  again  you  shall  not  regret  that  you  be- 
friended a  lonely  girl  in  a  strange  city,  sur- 
rounded by  intrigue  and  danger."  There  were 
tears  in  her  eyes  as  she  stood  swaying  before  us. 


THE   AETIFICIAL  PAEADISE       325 

The  tenseness  of  the  appeal  was  broken  by  the 
sharp  ringing  of  the  telephone  bell.  Kennedy 
quickly  took  down  the  receiver. 

"Your  maid  wishes  to  speak  to  you,"  he  said, 
handing  the  telephone  to  her. 

Her  face  brightened  with  that  nervous  hope 
that  springs  in  the  human  breast  even  in  the 
blackest  moments.  "I  told  her  if  any  message 
came  for  me  she  might  find  me  here,"  explained 
Miss  Guerrero.  "Yes,  Juanita,  what  is  it — a 
message  for  me?" 

My  Spanish  was  not  quite  good  enougli  to 
catch  more  than  a  word  here  and  there  in  the  low 
conversation,  but  I  could  guess  from  the  haggard 
look  which  overspread  her  delicate  face  that  the 
news  was  not  encouraging. 

"Oh!"  she  cried,  "this  is  terrible — terrible! 
What  shall  I  do  ?  Why  did  I  come  here  ?  I  don 't 
believe  it.  I  don't  believe  it." 

"Don't  believe  what,  Miss  Guerrero?"  asked 
Kennedy  reassuringly.  "Trust  me." 

' '  That  he  stole  the  money — oh,  what  am  I  say- 
ing? You  must  not  look  for  him — you  must  for- 
get that  I  have  been  here.  No,  I  don't  believe 
it." 

"What  money?"  asked  Kennedy,  disregarding 
her  appeal  to  drop  the  case.  "Kemember,  it  may 
be  better  that  we  should  know  it  now  than  the 
police  later.  We  will  respect  your  confidence." 

"The  junta  had  been  notified  a  few  days  ago, 


326  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

they  say,  that  a  large  sum — five  hundred  thou- 
sand silver  dollars — had  been  captured  from  the 
government  and  was  on  its  way  to  New  York  to 
be  melted  up  as  bullion  at  the  sub-treasury,"  she 
answered,  repeating  what  she  had  heard  over  the 
telephone  as  if  in  a  dream.  "Mr.  Jameson  re- 
ferred to  the  rumour  when  he  came  in.  I  was 
interested,  for  I  did  not  know  the  public  had 
heard  of  it  yet.  The  junta  has  just  announced 
that  the  money  is  missing.  As  soon  as  the  ship 
docked  in  Brooklyn  this  morning  an  agent  ap- 
peared with  the  proper  credentials  from  my 
father  and  a  guard,  and  they  took  the  money 
away.  It  has  not  been  heard  of  since — and  they 
have  no  word  from  my  father." 

Her  face  was  blanched  as  she  realised  what  the 
situation  was.  Here  she  was,  setting  people  to 
run  down  her  own  father,  if  the  suspicions  of  the 
other  members  of  the  junta  were  to  be  credited. 

"You — you  do  not  think  my  father — stole  the 
money?"  she  faltered  pitifully.  "Say  you  do 
not  think  so." 

"I  think  nothing  yet,"  replied  Kennedy  in  an 
even  voice.  "The  first  thing  to  do  is  to  find  him 
— before  the  detectives  of  the  junta  do  so." 

I  felt  a  tinge — I  must  confess  it — of  jealousy 
as  Kennedy  stood  beside  her,  clasping  her  hand 
in  both  of  his  and  gazing  earnestly  down  into  the 
rich  flush  that  now  spread  over  her  olive  cheeks. 

"Miss  Guerrero,"  he  said,  "you  may  trust  me 


THE   ARTIFICIAL  PAKADISE       327 

implicitly.  If  your  father  is  alive  I  will  do  all 
that  a  man  can  do  to  find  him.  Let  me  act — for 
the  best.  And,"  he  added,  wheeling  quickly  to- 
ward me,  "I  know  Mr.  Jameson  will  do  like- 
wise." 

I  was  pulled  two  ways  at  once.  I  believed  in 
Miss  Guerrero,  and  yet  the  flight  of  her  father 
and  the  removal  of  the  bullion — swallowed  up, 
as  it  were,  instantly,  without  so  much  as  a  trace 
in  New  York — looked  very  black  for  him.  And 
yet,  as  she  placed  her  small  hand  tremblingly  in 
mine  to  say  good-bye,  she  won  another  knight  to 
go  forth  and  fight  her  battle  for  her,  nor  do  I 
think  that  I  am  more  than  ordinarily  susceptible, 
either. 

When  she  had  gone,  I  looked  hopelessly  at  Ken- 
nedy. How  could  we  find  a  missing  man  in  a 
city  of  four  million  people,  find  him  without  the 
aid  of  the  police — perhaps  before  the  police  could 
themselves  find  him? 

Kennedy  seemed  to  appreciate  my  perplexity 
as  though  he  read  my  thoughts.  "The  first 
thing  to  do  is  to  locate  this  Senor  Torreon  from 
whom  the  first  information  came,"  he  remarked 
as  we  left  the  apartment.  "Miss  Guerrero  told 
me  that  he  might  possibly  be  found  in  an  obscure 
boarding-house  in  the  Bronx  where  several 
members  of  the  junta  live.  Let  us  try,  any- 
way." 

Fortune  favoured  us  to  the  extent  that  we  did 


328  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

find  Torreon  at  the  address  given.  He  made  no 
effort  to  evade  us,  though  I  noted  that  he  was  an 
unprepossessing-looking  man — undersized  and  a 
trifle  over-stout,  with  an  eye  that  never  met  yours 
as  you  talked  with  him.  Whether  it  was  that  he 
was  concealing  something,  or  whether  he  was 
merely  fearful  that  we  might  after  all  be  United 
States  Secret  Service  men,  or  whether  it  was 
simply  a  lack  of  command  of  English,  he  was  un- 
commonly uncommunicative  at  first.  He  re- 
peated sullenly  the  details  of  the  disappear- 
ance of  Guerrero,  just  as  we  had  already  heard 
them. 

"And  you  simply  bade  him  good-bye  as  you 
got  on  a  subway  train  and  that  is  the  last  you 
•ever  saw  of  him?"  repeated  Kennedy. 

"Yes,"  he  replied. 

"Did  he  seem  to  be  worried,  to  have  anything 
on  his  mind,  to  act  queerly  in  any  way!"  asked 
Kennedy  keenly. 

"No,"  came  the  monosyllabic  reply,  and  there 
was  just  that  shade  of  hesitation  about  it  that 
made  me  wish  we  had  the  apparatus  we  used  in 
the  Bond  case  for  registering  association  time. 
Kennedy  noticed  it,  and  purposely  dropped  the 
line  of  inquiry  in  order  not  to  excite  .Torreon's 
suspicion. 

"I  understand  no  word  has  been  received  from 
him  at  the  headquarters  on  South  Street  to-day," 
queried  Kennedy. 


THE   AETIFICIAL  PAKADISE       329 

"None,"  replied  Torreon  sharply. 

"And  you  have  no  idea  where  he  could  have 
gone  after  you  left  him  last  night?" 

"No,  sefior,  none." 

This  answer  was  given,  I  thought,  with  suspi- 
cious quickness. 

"You  do  not  think  that  he  could  be  concealed 
by  Senora  Mendez,  then!"  asked  Kennedy 
quietly. 

The  little  man  jumped  forward  with  his  eyes 
flashing.  "No,"  he  hissed,  checking  this  show 
of  feeling  as  quickly  as  he  could. 

"Well,  then,"  observed  Kennedy,  rising  slowly, 
"I  see  nothing  to  do  but  to  notify  the  police  and 
have  a  general  alarm  sent  out." 

The  fire  died  in  the  eyes  of  Torreon.  "Do  not 
do  that,  sefior,"  he  exclaimed.  "Wait  at  least 
one  day  more.  Perhaps  he  will  appear.  Perhaps 
he  has  only  gone  up  to  Bridgeport  to  see  about 
some  arms  and  cartridges — who  can  tell?  No, 
sir,  do  not  call  in  the  police,  I  beg  you — not  yet. 
I  myself  will  search  for  him.  It  may  be  I  can  get 
some  word,  some  clue.  If  I  can  I  will  notify  Miss 
Guerrero  immediately." 

Kennedy  turned  suddenly.  "Torreon,"  he 
flashed  quickly,  "what  do  you  suspect  about  that 
shipment  of  half  a  million  silver  dollars?  Where 
did  it  go  after  it  left  the  wharf?" 

Torreon  kept  his  composure  admirably.  An 
enigma  of  a  smile  flitted  over  his  mobile  features 


330  ,THE   SILENT  BULLET 

as  he  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Ah,"  he  said 
simply,  "then  you  have  heard  that  the  money  is 
missing?  Perhaps  Guerrero  has  not  gone  to 
Bridgeport,  after  all!" 

"On  condition  that  I  do  not  notify  the  police — 
yet — will  you  take  us  to  visit  Senora  Mendez, 
and  let  us  learn  from  her  what  she  knows  of  this 
strange  case?" 

Torreon  was  plainly  cornered.  He  sat  for  a 
moment  biting  his  nails  nervously  and  fidgeting 
in  his  chair.  "It  shall  be  as  you  wish,"  he  as- 
sented at  length. 

"We  are  to  go,"  continued  Kennedy,  "merely 
as  friends  of  yours,  you  understand?  I  want  to 
ask  questions  in  my  own  way,  and  you  are  not 
to—" 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  agreed.  "Wait.  I  will  tell 
her  we  are  coming,"  and  he  reached  for  the  tele- 
phone. 

"No,"  interrupted  Kennedy.  "I  prefer  to  go 
with  you  unexpected.  Put  down  the  telephone. 
Otherwise,  I  may  as  well  notify  my  friend  In- 
spector O'Connor  of  the  Central  Office  and  go  up 
with  him." 

Torreon  let  the  receiver  fall  back  in  its  socket, 
and  I  caught  just  a  glimpse  of  the  look  of  hate 
and  suspicion  which  crossed  his  face  as  he  turned 
toward  Kennedy.  When  he  spoke  it  was  as 
suavely  as  if  he  himself  were  the  one  who  had 
planned  this  little  excursion. 


THE   AKTIFICIAL  PARADISE       331 

"It  shall  be  as  you  wish,"  he  said,  leading  the 
way  out  to  the  cross-town  surface  cars. 

Senora  Mendez  received  us  politely,  and  we 
were  ushered  into  a  large  music-room  in  her 
apartment.  There  were  several  people  there  al- 
ready. They  were  seated  in  easy  chairs  about 
the  room. 

One  of  the  ladies  was  playing  on  the  piano  as 
we  entered.  It  was  a  curious  composition — very 
rhythmic,  with  a  peculiar  thread  of  monotonous 
melody  running  through  it. 

The  playing  ceased,  and  all  eyes  were  fixed  on 
us.  Kennedy  kept  very  close  to  Torreon,  appar- 
ently for  the  purpose  of  frustrating  any  attempt 
at  a  whispered  conversation  with  the  senora. 

The  guests  rose  and  with  courtly  politeness 
bowed  as  Senora  Mendez  presented  two  friends 
of  Seiior  Torreon,  Senor  Kennedy  and  Senor 
Jameson.  We  were  introduced  in  turn  to  Senor 
and  Senora  Alvardo,  Senor  Gonzales,  Senorita 
Reyes,  and  the  player,  Senora  Barrios. 

It  was  a  peculiar  situation,  and  for  want  of 
something  better  to  say  I  commented  on  the  curi- 
ous character  of  the  music  we  had  overheard  as 
we  entered. 

The  senora  smiled,  and  was  about  to  speak 
when  a  servant  entered,  bearing  a  tray  full  of 
little  cups  with  a  steaming  liquid,  and  in  a  silver 
dish  some  curious,  round,  brown,  disc-like  but- 
tons, about  an  inch  in  diameter  and  perhaps  a. 


332  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

quarter  of  an  inch  thick.  Torreon  motioned 
frantically  to  the  servant  to  withdraw,  but  Ken- 
nedy was  too  quick  for  him.  Interposing  himself 
between  Torreon  and  the  servant,  he  made  way 
for  her  to  enter. 

"You  were  speaking  of  the  music,"  replied 
Senora  Mendez  to  me  in  rich,  full  tones.  "Yes, 
it  is  very  curious.  It  is  a  song  of  the  Kiowa  In- 
dians of  New  Mexico  which  Senora  Barrios  has 
endeavoured  to  set  to  music  so  that  it  can  be  ren- 
dered on  the  piano.  Senora  Barrios  and  myself 
fled  from  Vespuccia  to  Mexico  at  the  start  of  our 
revolution,  and  when  the  Mexican  government 
ordered  us  to  leave  on  account  of  our  political 
activity  we  merely  crossed  the  line  to  the  United 
States,  in  New  Mexico.  It  was  there  that  we 
ran  across  this  very  curious  discovery.  The  mo- 
notonous beat  of  that  melody  you  heard  is  sup- 
posed to  represent  the  beating  of  the  tom-toms 
of  the  Indians  during  their  mescal  rites.  We  are 
having  a  mescal  evening  here,  whiling  away  the 
hours  of  exile  from  our  native  Vespuccia." 

"Mescal?"  I  repeated  blankly  at  first,  then 
feeling  a  nudge  from  Kennedy,  I  added  hastily: 
"Oh,  yes,  to  be  sure.  I  think  I  have  heard  of  it. 
It's  a  Mexican  drink,  is  it  not?  I  have  never  had 
the  pleasure  of  tasting  it  or  of  tasting  that  other 
drink,  pulque — poolkay — did  I  get  the  accent 
right!" 

I  felt  another,  sharper  nudge  from  Kennedy, 


THE  AETIFICIAL  PARADISE      333 

and  knew  that  I  had  only  made  matters  worse.. 
"Mr.  Jameson,"  he  hastened  to  remark,  " con- 
founds this  mescal  of  the  Indians  with  the  drink 
of  the  same  name  that  is  common  in  Mejdco~"' 

"Oh,"  she  laughed,  to  my  great  relief,  "but 
this  mescal  is  something  quite  different.  The 
Mexican  drink  mescal  is  made  from  the  maguey- 
plant  and  is  a  frightfully  horrid  thing  that  sends 
the  peon  out  of  his  senses  and  makes  him  violent. 
Mescal  as  I  mean  it  is  a  little  shrub,  a  god,  a  cult, 
a  religion." 

"Yes,"  assented  Kennedy;  "discovered  by; 
those  same  Kiowa  Indians,  was  it  not?" 

"Perhaps,"  she  admitted,  raising  her  beauti- 
ful shoulders  in  polite  deprecation.  "The  mes- 
cal religion,  we  found,  has  spread  very  largely  in 
New  Mexico  and  Arizona  among  the  Indians,  and 
with  the  removal  of  the  Kiowas  to  the  Indian  res- 
ervation it  has  been  adopted  by  other  tribes — 
even,  I  have  heard,  as  far  north  as  the  Canadian 
border." 

"Is  that  so?"  asked  Kennedy.  "I  understood 
that  the  United  States  government  had  forbidden 
the  importation  of  the  mescal  plant  and  its  sale 
to  the  Indians  under  severe  penalties." 

"It  has,  sir,"  interposed  Alvaordo,  who  had 
joined  us,  "but  still  the  mescal  cult  grows  se- 
cretly. For  my  part,  I  think  it  might  be  more 
wise  for  your  authorities  to  look  to  the  whiskey, 
and  beer  that  unscrupulous  persons  are  selling. 


334  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

Senor  Jameson,"  he  added,  turning  to  me,  "will 
you  join  us  in  a  little  cup  of  this  artificial  para- 
dise, as  one  of  your  English  writers — Havelock 
Ellis,  I  think — has  appropriately  called  it?" 

I  glanced  dubiously  at  Kennedy  as  Senora 
OMendez  took  one  of  the  little  buttons  out  of  the 
silver  tray.  Carefully  paring  the  fuzzy  tuft  of 
hairs  off  the  top  of  it — it  looked  to  me  very  much 
like  the  tip  of  a  cactus  plant,  which,  indeed,  it 
was — she  rolled  it  into  a  little  pellet  and  placed 
it  in  her  mouth,  chewing  it  slowly  like  a  piece  of 
chicle. 

"Watch  me;  do  just  as  I  do,"  whispered  Ken- 
nedy to  me  at  a  moment  when  no  one  was  look- 
ing. 

The  servant  advanced  towards  us  with  the  tray. 

"The  mescal  plant,"  explained  Alvardo,  point- 
ing at  the  little  discs,  "grows  precisely  like  these 
little  buttons  which  you  see  here.  It  is  a  species 
of  cactus  which  rises  only  half  an  inch  or  so  from 
the  ground.  The  stem  is  surrounded  by  a  clump 
of  blunt  leaves  which  give  it  its  button  shape,  and 
on  the  top  you  will  see  still  the  tuft  of  filaments, 
like  a  cactus.  It  grows  in  the  rocky  soil  in  many 
places  in  the  state  of  Jalisco,  though  only  re- 
cently has  it  become  known  to  science.  The  In- 
dians, when  they  go  out  to  gather  it,  simply  lop 
off  these  little  ends  as  they  peep  above  the  earth, 
dry  them,  keep  what  they  wish  for  their  own  use, 
and  sell  the  rest  for  what  is  to  them  a  fabulous 


THE   AETIFICIAL  PARADISE       335 

sum.  Some  people  chew  the  buttons,  while  a  few 
have  lately  tried  making  an  infusion  or  tea  out 
of  them.  Perhaps  to  a  beginner  I  had  better  rec- 
ommend the  infusion." 

I  had  scarcely  swallowed  the  bitter,  almost 
nauseous  decoction  than  I  began  to  feel  my  heart 
action  slowing  up  and  my  pulse  beating  fuller 
and  stronger.  The  pupils  of  my  eyes  expanded 
as  with  a  dose  of  belladonna ;  at  least,  I  could  see 
that  Kennedy's  did,  and  so  mine  must  have  done 
the  same. 

I  seemed  to  feel  an  elated  sense  of  superiority 
— really  I  almost  began  to  feel  that  it  was  I,  not 
Kennedy,  who  counted  most  in  this  investigation. 
I  have  since  learned  that  this  is  the  common  ex- 
perience of  mescal-users,  this  sense  of  elation; 
but  the  feeling  of  physical  energy  and  intellec- 
tual power  soon  wore  off,  and  I  found  myself 
glad  to  recline  in  my  easy  chair,  as  the  rest  did, 
in  silent  indolence. 

Still,  the  display  that  followed  for  an  en- 
chanted hour  or  so  was  such  as  I  find  it  hopeless 
to  describe  in  language  which  shall  convey  to 
others  the  beauty  and  splendour  of  what  I  saw. 

I  picked  up  a  book  lying  on  the  table  before 
me.  A  pale  blue-violet  shadow  floated  across  the 
page  before  me,  leaving  an  after-image  of  pure 
colour  that  was  indescribable.  I  laid  down  the 
book  and  closed  my  eyes.  A  confused  riot  of 
images  and  colours  like  a  kaleidoscope  crowded 


336  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

before  me,  at  first  indistinct,  but,  as  I  gazed  with 
closed  eyes,  more  and  more  definite.  Golden  and 
red  and  green  jewels  seemed  to  riot  before  me. 
I  bathed  my  hands  in  inconceivable  riches  of 
beauty  such  as  no  art-glass  worker  has  ever  pro- 
duced. All  discomfort  ceased.  I  had  no  desire 
to  sleep — dn  fact,  was  hyper-sensitive.  But  it 
was  a  real  effort  to  open  my  eyes ;  to  tear  myself 
away  from  the  fascinating  visions  of  shapes  and 
colours. 

At  last  I  did  open  my  eyes  to  gaze  at  the  gas- 
jets  of  the  chandelier  as  they  flickered.  They 
seemed  to  send  out  waves,  expanding  and  con- 
tracting, waves  of  colour.  The  shadows  of  the 
room  were  highly  coloured  and  constantly; 
changing  as  the  light  changed. 

Senora  Barrios  began  lightly  to  play  on  the 
piano  the  transposed  Kiowa  song,  emphasising 
the  notes  that  represented  the  drum-beats. 
Strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  music  translated  it- 
self into  pure  colour — and  the  rhythmic  beating 
of  the  time  seemed  to  aid  the  process.  I  thought 
of  the  untutored  Indians  as  they  sat  in  groups 
about  the  flickering  camp-fire  while  others  beat 
the  tom-toms  and  droned  the  curious  melody. 
What  were  the  visions  of  the  red  man,  I  wondered, 
as  he  chewed  his  mescal  button  and  the  medicine 
man  prayed  to  Hikori,  the  cactus  god,  to  grant 
a  "beautiful  intoxication?" 

Under  the  gas-lights  of  the  chandelier  hung  a 


THE   ARTIFICIAL  PAEADISE       337 

cluster  of  electric  light  bulbs  which  added  to  the 
flood  of  golden  effulgence  that  bathed  the  room 
and  all  things  in  it.  I  gazed  next  intently  at  the 
electric  lights.  They  became  the  sun  itself  in 
their  steadiness,  until  I  had  to  turn  away  my 
head  and  close  my  eyes.  Even  then  the  image 
persisted — I  saw  the  golden  sands  of  Newport, 
only  they  were  blazing  with  glory  as  if  they  were 
veritable  diamond  dust.  I  saw  the  waves,  of 
incomparable  blue,  rolling  up  on  the  shore.  A 
yague  perfume  was  wafted  on  the  air.  I  was  in 
an  orgy  of  vision.  Yet  there  was  no  stage  of 
maudlin  emotion.  It  was  at  least  elevating. 

Kennedy's  experiences  as  he  related  them  to 
me  afterwards  were  similar,  though  sufficiently 
varied  to  be  interesting.  His  visions  took  the 
forms  of  animals — a  Cheshire  cat,  like  that  in 
"Alice  in  Wonderland,"  with  merely  a  grin 
that  faded  away,  changing  into  a  lynx  which  in 
turn  disappeared,  followed  by  an  unknown  crea- 
ture with  short  nose  and  pointed  ears,  then  tor- 
toises and  guinea-pigs,  a  perfectly  unrelated  suc- 
cession of  beasts.  When  the  playing  began  to 
beautiful  panorama  unfolded  before  him — the 
regular  notes  in  the  music  enhancing  the  beauty 
and  changes  in  the  scenes,  which  he  described  as 
a  most  wonderful  kinetoscopic  display. 

In  fact,  only  De  Quincey  or  Bayard  Taylor  or 
Poe  could  have  done  justice  to  the  thrilling  ef- 
fects of  the  drug,  and  not  even  they  unless  an 


338  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

amanuensis  had  been  seated  by  them  to  take 
down  what  they  dictated,  for  I  defy  anyone  to  re- 
member anything  but  a  fraction  of  the  rapid 
march  of  changes  under  its  influence.  Indeed, 
in  observing  its  action  I  almost  forgot  for  the 
time  being  the  purpose  of  our  visit,  so  fascinated 
was  I.  The  music  ceased,  but  not  the  visions. 

Senora  Mendez  advanced  toward  us.  The 
spangles  on  her  net  dress  seemed  to  give  her  a 
fairy-like  appearance;  she  seemed  to  float  over 
the  carpet  like  a  glowing,  fleecy,  white  cloud  over 
a  rainbow-tinted  sky. 

Kennedy,  however,  had  not  for  an  instant  for- 
gotten what  we  were  there  for,  and  his  attention 
recalled  mine.  I  was  surprised  to  see  that  when 
I  made  the  effort  I  could  talk  and  think  quite  as 
rationally  as  ever,  though  the  wildest  pranks 
were  going  on  in  my  mind  and  vision.  Kennedy 
did  not  beat  about  in  putting  his  question,  evi- 
dently counting  on  the  surprise  to  extract  the 
truth. 

"What  time  did  Senor  Guerrero  leave  last 
night  1" 

The  question  came  so  suddenly  that  she  had  no 
time  to  think  of  a  reply  that  would  conceal  any- 
thing she  might  otherwise  have  wished  to  con- 
ceal. 

"About  ten  o'clock,"  she  answered,  then  in- 
stantly was  on  her  guard,  for  Torreon  had  caught 
her  eye. 


THE   AETIFICIAL   PARADISE       339 

"And  you  have  no  idea  where  he  went?"  asked 
Kennedy. 

"None,  unless  he  went  home,"  she  replied 
guardedly. 

I  did  not  at  the  time  notice  the  significance  of 
her  prompt  response  to  Torreon's  warning.  I 
did  not  notice,  as  did  Kennedy,  the  smile  that 
spread  over  Torreon's  features.  The  music  had 
started  again,  and  I  was  oblivious  to  all  but  the 
riot  of  colour. 

Again  the  servant  entered.  She  seemed 
clothed  in  a  halo  of  light  and  colour,  every  fold 
of  her  dress  radiating  the  most  delicate  tones. 
Yet  there  was  nothing  voluptuous  or  sensual 
about  it.  I  was  raised  above  earthly  things. 
Men  and  women  were  no  longer  men  and  women. 
— they  were  brilliant  creatures  of  whom  I  was 
one.  It  was  sensuous,  but  not  sensual.  I  looked 
at  my  own  clothes.  My  every-day  suit  was  ideal- 
ised. My  hands  were  surrounded  by  a  glow  of 
red  fire  that  made  me  feel  that  they  must  be  the 
hands  of  a  divinity.  I  noticed  them  as  I  reached 
forward  toward  the  tray  of  little  cups. 

There  swam  into  my  line  of  vision  another  such 
hand.  It  laid  itself  on  my  arm.  A  voice  sang 
in  my  ear  softly: 

"No,  Walter,  we  have  had  enough.  Come,  let 
us  go.  This  is  not  like  any  other  known  drug — 
not  even  the  famous  Cannabis  indica,  hasheesh. 
Let  us  go  as  soon  as  we  politely  can.  I  have 


340  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

found  out  what  I  wanted  to  know.  Guerrero  is 
not  here." 

We  rose  shortly  and  excused  ourselves  and, 
with  general  regrets  in  which  all  but  Torreon 
joined,  were  bowed  out  with  the  same  courtly 
politeness  with  which  we  had  been  received. 

As  we  left  the  house,  the  return  to  the  world 
was  quick.  It  was  like  coming  out  from  the 
matinee  and  seeing  the  crowds  on  the  street. 
They,  not  the  matinee,  were  unreal  for  the  mo- 
ment.  But,  strange  to  say,  I  found  one  felt  no 
depression  as  a  result  of  the  mescal  intoxication. 

"What  is  it  about  mescal  that  produces  such 
results?"  I  asked. 

"The  alkaloids,"  replied  Kennedy  as  we 
walked  slowly  along.  "Mescal  was  first  brought 
to  the  attention  of  scientists  by  explorers  em- 
ployed by  our  bureau  of  ethnology.  Dr.  Weir 
Mitchell  and  Dr.  Harvey  Wiley  and  several  Ger- 
man scientists  have  investigated  it  since  then. 
It  is  well  known  that  it  contains  half  a  dozen 
alkaloids  and  resins  of  curious  and  little-inves- 
tigated nature.  I  can't  recall  even  the  names  of 
them  offhand,  but  I  have  them  in  my  labora- 
tory." 

As  the  effect  of  the  mescal  began  to  wear  ofE 
in  the  fresh  air,  I  found  myself  in  a  peculiar; 
questioning  state.  What  had  we  gained  by  our 
visit?  Looking  calmly  at  it,  I  could  not  help  but 
ask  myself  why  both  Torreon  and  Senora  Mendea 


THE   AETIFICIAL  PARADISE       341 

had  acted  as  if  they  were  concealing  something 
about  the  whereabouts  of  Guerrero.  Was  she  a 
spy!  Did  she  know  anything  about  the  loss  of 
the  half-million  dollars? 

Of  one  thing  I  was  certain.  Torreon  was  an 
ardent  admirer  of  the  beautiful  senora,  equally 
ardent  with  Guerrero.  Was  he  simply  a  jealous- 
suitor,  angry  at  his  rival,  and  now  glad  that  he 
was  out  of  the  way?  Where  had  Guerrero  gone? 
,The  question  was  still  unanswered. 

Absorbed  in  these  reveries,  I  did  not  notice 
particularly  where  Kennedy  was  hurrying  me. 
In  fact,  finding  no  plausible  answer  to  my  specu- 
lations and  knowing  that  it  was  useless  to  ques- 
tion Kennedy  at  this  stage  of  his  inquiry,  I  did 
not  for  the  moment  care  where  we  went  but  al- 
lowed him  to  take  the  lead. 

We  entered  one  of  the  fine  apartments  on  the 
drive  and  rode  up  in  the  elevator.  A  door  opened 
and,  with  a  start,  I  found  myself  in  the  presence 
of  Miss  Guerrero  again.  The  questioning  look 
on  her  face  recalled  the  object  of  our  search,  and 
its  ill  success  so  far.  Why  had  Kennedy  come 
back  with  so  little  to  report? 

"Have  you  heard  anything?"  she  asked 
eagerly. 

"Not  directly,"  replied  Kennedy.  "But  I 
have  a  clue,  at  least.  I  believe  that  Torreon 
knows  where  your  father  is  and  will  let  you  know, 
any  moment  now.  It  is  to  his  interest  to  clean 


342  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

himself  before  this  scandal  about  the  money  be- 
comes generally  known.  Would  you  allow  me 
to  search  through  your  father's  desk?" 

For  some  moments  Kennedy  rummaged 
through  the  drawers  and  pigeonholes,  silently. 

"  Where  does  the  junta  keep  its  arms  stored — 
not  in  the  meeting-place  on  South  Street  does 
it?"  asked  Kennedy  at  length. 

"Not  exactly;  that  would  be  a  little  too  risky," 
she  replied.  "I  believe  they  have  a  loft  above 
the  office,  hired  in  someone  else's  name  and  not 
connected  with  the  place  down-stairs  at  all.  My 
father  and  Senor  Torreon  are  the  only  ones  who 
have  the  keys.  Why  do  you  ask?" 

"I  ask,"  replied  Craig,  "because  I  was  won- 
dering whether  there  might  not  be  something  that 
would  take  him  down  to  South  Street  last  night. 
It  is  the  only  place  I  can  think  of  his  going  to  at 
such  a  late  hour,  unless  he  has  gone  out  of  town. 
If  we  do  not  hear  from  Torreon  soon  I  think  I 
will  try  what  I  can  find  down  there.  Ah,  what  is 
this?" 

Kennedy  drew  forth  a  little  silver  box  and 
opened  it.  Inside  reposed  a  dozen  mescal  but- 
tons. 

We  both  looked  quickly  at  Miss  Guerrero,  but 
it  was  quite  evident  that  she  was  unacquainted 
with  them. 

She  was  about  to  ask  what  Kennedy  had  found 
when  the  telephone  rang  and  the  maid  announced 


THE   AKTIFICIAL  PAKADISE       343 

that  Miss  Guerrero  was  wanted  by  Senor  Tor- 
reon. 

A  smile  of  gratification  flitted  over  Kennedy's 
face  as  he  leaned  over  to  me  and  whispered:  "It 
is  evident  that  Torreon  is  anxious  to  clear  him- 
self. I'll  wager  he  has  done  some  rapid  hustling 
since  we  left  him." 

"Perhaps  this  is  some  word  about  my  father 
at  last,"  murmured  Miss  Guerrero  as  she  nerv- 
ously hurried  to  the  telephone,  and  answered. 
"Yes,  this  is  Senorita  Guerrero,  Seiior  Torreon. 
You  are  at  the  office  of  the  junta?  Yes,  yes,  you 
have  word  from  my  father — you  went  down 
there  to-night  expecting  some  guns  to  be  deliv- 
ered?— and  you  found  him  there — up-stairs  in 
the  loft — ill,  did  you  say? — unconscious?" 

In  an  instant  her  face  was  drawn  and  pale,  and 
the  receiver  fell  clattering  to  the  hard-wood  floor 
from  her  nerveless  fingers. 

"He  is  dead!"  she  gasped  as  she  swayed  back- 
ward and  I  caught  her.  With  Kennedy's  help  I 
carried  her,  limp  and  unconscious,  across  the 
room,  and  placed  her  in  a  deep  armchair.  I  stood 
at  her  side,  but  for  the  moment  could  only  look 
on  helplessly,  blankly  at  the  now  stony  beauty 
of  her  face. 

"Some  water,  Juanita,  quick!"  I  cried  as 
soon  as  I  had  recovered  from  the  shock.  "Have 
you  any  smelling-salts  or  anything  of  that  sort? 
Perhaps  you  can  find  a  little  brandy.  Hurry." 


344  ,THE   SILENT   BULLET 

While  we  were  making  her  comfortable  the 
telephone  continued  to  tinkle. 

"This  is  Kennedy,"  I  heard  Craig  say,  as 
Juanita  came  hurrying  in  with  water,  smelling- 
salts,  and  brandy.  "You  fool.  She  fainted. 
Why  couldn't  you  break  it  to  her  gently? 
What's  that  address  on  South  Street?  You 
found  him  over  the  junta  meeting-place  in  a  loft? 
Yes,  I  understand.  What  were  you  doing  down 
there?  You  went  down  expecting  a  shipment  of 
arms  and  saw  a  light  overhead — I  see — and  sus- 
pecting something  you  entered  with  a  policeman. 
You  heard  him  move  across  the  floor  above  and 
fall  heavily?  All  right.  Someone  will  be  down 
directly.  Ambulance  surgeon  has  tried  every- 
thing, you  say?  No  heart  action,  no  breathing? 
Sure.  Very  well.  Let  the  body  remain  just  where 
it  is  until  I  get  down.  Oh,  wait.  How  long  ago 
did  it  happen?  Fifteen  minutes?  All  right. 
Good-bye." 

Such  restoratives  as  we  had  found  we  applied 
faithfully.  At  last  we  were  rewarded  by  the  first 
flutter  of  an  eyelid.  Then  Miss  Guerrero  gazed 
wildly  about. 

"  He  is  dead, ' '  she  moaned.  '  *  They  have  killed 
him.  I  know  it.  My  father  is  dead."  Over  and 
over  she  repeated:  "He  is  dead.  I  shall  never 
see  him  again." 

Vainly  I  tried  to  soothe  her.  What  was  there 
to  say?  There  could  be  no  doubt  about  it.  Tor- 


THE   AKTIFICIAL  PAKADISE       345 

reon  must  have  gone  down  directly  after  we  left 
Senora  Mendez.  He  had  seen  a  light  in  the  loft, 
had  entered  with  a  policeman — as  a  witness,  he 
had  told  Craig  over  the  telephone — had  heard 
Guerrero  fall,  and  liad  sent  for  the  ambulance. 
How  long  Guerrero  had  been  there  he  did  not 
know,  for  while  members  of  the  junta  had  been 
coming  and  going  all  day  in  the  office  below  none 
had  gone  up  into  the  locked  loft. 

Kennedy  with  rare  skill  calmed  Miss  Guerrero's 
dry-eyed  hysteria  into  a  gentle  rain  of  tears, 
which  relieved  her  overwrought  feelings.  We  si- 
lently withdrew,  leaving  the  two  women,  mistress 
and  servant,  weeping. 

" Craig,"  I  asked  when  we  had  gained  the 
street,  "what  do  you  make  of  it?  "We  must  lose 
no  time.  Arrest  this  Mendez  woman  before  she 
has  a  chance  to  escape. ' ' 

"Not  so  fast,  Walter,"  he  cautioned  as  we  spun 
along  in  a  taxicab.  "Our  case  isn't  very  com- 
plete against  anybody  yet." 

"But  it  looks  black  for  Guerrero,"  I  admitted. 
"Dead  men  tell  no  tales  even  to  clear  them- 
selves." 

"It  all  depends  on  speed  now,"  he  answered 
laconically. 

We  had  reached  the  university,  which  was  only 
a  few  blocks  away,  and  Craig  dashed  into  his 
laboratory  while  I  settled  with  the  driver.  He 
reappeared  almost  instantly  with  some  bulky  ap- 


346  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

paratus  under  his  arm,  and  we  more  than  ran 
from  the  building  to  the  near-by  subway  station. 
Fortunately  there  was  an  express  just  pulling  in, 
as  we  tumbled  down  the  steps. 

To  one  who  knows  South  Street  as  merely  a 
river-front  street  whose  glory  of  other  days  has 
long  since  departed,  where  an  antiquated  horse- 
car  now  ambles  slowly  up-town,  and  trucks  and 
carts  all  day  long  are  in  a  perpetual  jam,  it  is 
peculiarly  uninteresting  by  day,  and  peculiarly 
deserted  and  vicious  by  night.  But  there  is  an- 
other fascination  about  South  Street.  Perhaps 
there  has  never  been  a  revolution  in  Latin  Amer- 
ica which  has  not  in  some  way  or  other  been  con- 
nected with  this  street,  whence  hundreds  of  fili- 
bustering expeditions  have  started.  Whenever  a 
dictator  is  to  be  overthrown,  or  half  a  dozen  choc- 
olate-skinned generals  in  the  Caribbean  become 
dissatisfied  with  their  portions  of  gold  lace,  the 
arms-  and  ammunition-dealers  of  South  Street 
can  give,  if  they  choose,  an  advance  scenario  of 
the  whole  tragedy  or  comic  opera,  as  the  case 
may  be.  Eeal  war  or  opera-bouffe,  it  is  all  grist 
for  the  mills  of  these  close-mouthed  individuals. 

Our  quest  took  us  to  a  ramshackle  building 
reminiscent  of  the  days  when  the  street  bristled 
with  bowsprits  of  ships  from  all  over  the  world, 
an  age  when  the  American  merchantman  flew  our 
flag  on  the  uttermost  of  the  seven-seas.  On  the 
ground  floor  was  an  apparently  innocent  junk- 


THE   AKTIFICIAL  PARADISE       347 

dealer's  shop,  in  reality  the  meeting-place  of  the 
junta.  By  an  outside  stairway  the  lofts  above 
were  reached,  hiding  their  secrets  behind  win- 
dows opaque  with  decades  of  dust. 

At  the  door  we  were  met  by  Torreon  and  the 
policeman.  Both  appeared  to  be  shocked  beyond 
measure.  Torreon  was  profuse  in  explanations 
which  did  not  explain.  Out  of  the  tangled  mass 
of  verbiage  I  did  manage  to  extract,  however,  the 
impression  that,  come  what  might  to  the  other 
members  of  the  junta,  Torreon  was  determined 
to  clear  his  own  name  at  any  cost.  He  and  the 
policeman  had  discovered  Senor  Guerrero  only  a 
short  time  before,  up-stairs.  For  all  he  knew, 
Guerrero  had  been  there  some  time,  perhaps  all 
day,  while  the  others  were  meeting  down-stairs. 
Except  for  the  light  he  might  have  been  there  un- 
discovered still.  Torreon  swore  he  had  heard 
Guerrero  fall;  the  policeman  was  not  quite  so 
positive. 

Kennedy  listened  impatiently,  then  sprang  up 
the  stairs,  only  to  call  back  to  the  policeman: 
"Go  call  me  a  taxicab  at  the  ferry,  an  electric 
cab.  Mind,  now,  not  a  gasoline-cab — electric.'* 

We  found  the  victim  lying  on  a  sort  of  bed  of 
sailcloth  in  a  loft  apparently  devoted  to  the  peace- 
ful purposes  of  the  junk  trade,  but  really  a  per- 
fect arsenal  and  magazine.  It  was  dusty  and 
cobwebbed,  crammed  with  stands  of  arms,  tents, 
uniforms  in  bales,  batteries  of  Maxims  and 


348  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

mountain-guns,  and  all  the  paraphernalia  for 
carrying  on  a  real  twentieth-century  revolution. 

The  young  ambulance  surgeon  was  still  there, 
so  quickly  had  we  been  able  to  get  down-town. 
He  had  his  stomach-pump,  hypodermic  syringe, 
emetics,  and  various  tubes  spread  out  on  a  piece 
of  linen  on  a  packing-case.  Kennedy  at  once  in- 
quired just  what  he  had  done. 

' '  Thought  at  first  it  was  only  a  bad  case  of  syn- 
cope," he  replied,  "but  I  guess  he  was  dead  some 
minutes  before  I  got  here.  Tried  rhythmic  trac- 
tion of  the  tongue,  artificial  respiration,  stimu- 
lants, chest  and  heart  massage — everything,  but 
it  was  no  use." 

"Have  you  any  idea  what  caused  his  death?" 
asked  Craig  as  he  hastily  adjusted  his  apparatus 
to  an  electric  light  socket — a  rheostat,  an  induc- 
tion-coil of  peculiar  shape,  and  an  "interrupter." 

"Poison  of  some  kind — an  alkaloid.  They  say 
they  heard  him  fall  as  they  came  up-stairs,  and 
when  they  got  to  him  he  was  blue.  His  face  was 
as  blua  as  it  is  now  when  I  arrived.  Asphyxia, 
failure  of  both  heart  and  lungs,  that  was  what 
the  alkaloid  caused." 

.The  gong  of  the  electric  cab  sounded  outside. 
As  Craig  heard  it  he  rushed  with  two  wires  to 
the  window,  threw  them  out,  and  hurried  down- 
stairs, attaching  them  to  the  batteries  of  the 
cab. 

In  an  instant  he  was  back  again. 


THE  AKTIFICIAL  PAEADISE       349 

"Now,  Doctor,"  he  said,  "Pm  going  to  per- 
form a  very  delicate  test  on  this  man.  Here  I 
have  the  alternating  city  current  and  here  a  di- 
rect, continuous  current  from  the  storage-bat- 
teries of  the  cab  below.  Doctor,  hold  his  mouth 
open.  So.  Now,  have  you  a  pair  of  forceps 
handy?  Good.  Can  you  catch  hold  of  the  tip  of 
his  tongue !  There.  Do  just  as  I  tell  you.  I  ap- 
ply this  cathode  to  his  skin  in  the  dorsal  region, 
under  the  back  of  the  neck,  and  this  anode  in  the 
lumbar  region  at  the  base  of  the  spine — just 
pieces  of  cotton  soaked  in  salt  solution  and  cov- 
ering the  metal  electrodes,  to  give  me  a  good  con- 
tact with  the  body." 

I  was  fascinated.  It  was  gruesome,  and  yet  I 
could  not  take  my  eyes  off  it.  Torreon  stood 
blankly,  in  a  daze.  Craig  was  as  calm  as  if  his 
every-day  work  was  experimenting  on  cadavers. 

He  applied  the  current,  moving  the  anode  and 
the  cathode  slowly.  I  had  often  seen  the  experi- 
ments on  the  nerves  of  a  frog  that  had  been 
freshly  killed,  how  the  electric  current  will  make 
the  muscles  twitch,  as  discovered  long  ago  by  Gal- 
vani.  But  I  was  not  prepared  to  see  it  on  a  hu- 
man being.  Torreon  muttered  something  and 
crossed  himself. 

The  arms  seemed  hall  to  rise — then  suddenly 
to  fall,  flabby  again.  There  was  a  light  hiss  like 
an  inspiration  and  expiration  of  air,  a  ghastly 
sound. 


350  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"Lungs  react,"  muttered  Kennedy,  "but  the 
heart  doesn't.  I  must  increase  the  voltage." 

Again  he  applied  the  electrodes. 

The  face  seemed  a  different  shade  of  blue,  I 
thought. 

"Good  God,  Kennedy,"  I  exclaimed,  "do  you 
suppose  the  effect  of  that  mescal  on  me  hasn't 
worn  oif  yet?  Blue,  blue — everything  blue  is 
playing  pranks  before  my  eyes.  Tell  me,  is  the 
blue  of  that  face — his  face — is  it  changing?  Do 
you  see  it,  or  do  I  imagine  it?" 

"Blood  asphyxiated,"  was  the  disjointed  re- 
ply. "The  oxygen  is  clearing  it." 

"But,  Kennedy,"  I  persisted,  "his  face  was 
dark  blue,  black  a  minute  ago.  The  most  aston- 
ishing change  has  taken  place.  Its  colour  is 
almost  natural  now.  Do  I  imagine  it  or  is  it 
real?" 

Kennedy  was  so  absorbed  in  his  work  that  he 
made  no  reply  at  all.  He  heard  nothing,  nothing 
save  the  slow,  forced  inspiration  and  expiration 
of  air  as  he  deftly  and  quickly  manipulated  the 
electrodes. 

"Doctor,"  he  cried  at  length,  "tell  me  what  is 
going  on  in  that  heart." 

The  young  surgeon  bent  his  head  and  placed 
his  ear  on  the  cold  breast.  As  he  raised  his  eyes 
and  they  chanced  to  rest  on  Kennedy's  hands, 
holding  the  electrodes  dangling  idly  in  the  air,  I 
think  I  never  saw  a  greater  look  of  astonishment 


THE   ARTIFICIAL  PARADISE       351 

on  a  human  face.  "It — is — almost — natural," 
lie  gasped. 

"With  great  care  and  a  milk  diet  for  a  few 
days  Guerrero  will  live,"  said  Kennedy  quietly. 
"It  w  natural." 

"My  God,  man,  but  he  was  dead!"  exclaimed 
the  surgeon.  "I  know  it.  His  heart  was  stopped 
and  his  lungs  collapsed." 

"To  all  intents  and  purposes  he  was  dead,  dead 
as  ever  a  man  was,"  replied  Craig,  "and  would 
be  now,  if  I  hadn't  happened  to  think  of  this 
special  induction-coil  loaned  to  me  by  a  doctor 
who  had  studied  deeply  the  process  of  electric 
resuscitation  developed  by  Professor  Leduc  of 
the  Nantes  Ecole  de  Medicin.  There  is  only  one 
case  I  know  of  on  record  which  compares  with 
this — a  case  of  a  girl  resuscitated  in  Paris.  The 
girl  was  a  chronic  morphine-eater  and  was  'dead' 
forty  minutes." 

I  stood  like  one  frozen,  the  thing  was  so  incom- 
prehensible, after  the  many  surprises  of  the  even- 
ing that  had  preceded.  Torreon,  in  fact,  did  not 
comprehend  for  the  moment. 

As  Kennedy  and  I  bent  over,  Guerrero's  eyes 
opened,  but  he  apparently  saw  nothing.  His 
hand  moved  a  little,  and  his  lips  parted.  Ken- 
nedy quickly  reached  into  the  pockets  of  the  man 
gasping  for  breath,  one  after  another.  From  a 
vest  pocket  he  drew  a  little  silver  case,  identical 
with  that  he  had  found  in  the  desk  up-town.  He 


352  ,THE   SILENT  BULLET 

opened  it,  and  one  mescal  button  rolled  out  into 
the  palm  of  his  hand.  Kennedy  regarded  it 
thoughtfully. 

"I  suspect  there  is  at  least  one  devotee  of  the 
vision-breeding  drug  who  will  no  longer  cultivate 
its  use,  as  a  result  of  this,"  he  added,  looking 
significantly  at  the  man  before  us. 

11  Guerrero,"  shouted  Kennedy,  placing  his 
mouth  close  to  the  man's  ear,  but  muffling  his 
voice  so  that  only  I  could  distinguish  what  he 
said,  " Guerrero,  where  is  the  money?" 

His  lips  moved  trembling  again,  but  I  could  not 
make  out  that  he  said  anything. 

Kennedy  rose  and  quietly  went  over  to  detach 
his  apparatus  from  the  electric  light  socket  be- 
hind Torreon. 

"Car-ramba!"  I  heard  as  I  turned  suddenly. 

Craig  had  Torreon  firmly  pinioned  from  be- 
hind by  both  arms.  The  policeman  quickly  in- 
terposed. 

"It's  all  right,  officer,"  exclaimed  Craig. 
" Walter,  reach  into  his  inside  pocket." 

I  pulled  out  a  bunch  of  papers  and  turned  them 
over. 

"What's  that?"  asked  Kennedy  as  I  came  to 
something  neatly  enclosed  in  an  envelope. 

I  opened  it.  It  was  a  power  of  attorney  from 
Guerrero  to  Torreon. 

"Perhaps  it  is  no  crime  to  give  a  man  mescal 
if  he  wants  it — I  doubt  if  the  penal  code  covers 


THE   AETIFICIAL  PAKADISE       353 

that,"  ejaculated  Kennedy.  "But  it  is  conspir- 
acy to  give  it  to  him  and  extract  a  power  of  at- 
torney by  which  you  can  get  control  of  trust  funds 
consigned  to  him.  Manuel  Torreon,  the  game  is 
up.  You  and  Senora  Mendez  have  played  your 
parts  well.  But  you  have  lost.  You  waited  un- 
til you  thought  Guerrero  was  dead,  then  you  took 
a  policeman  along  as  a  witness  to  clear  yourself. 
But  the  secret  is  not  dead,  after  all.  Is  there 
nothing  else  in  those  papers,  Walter?  Yes? 
Ah,  a  bill  of  lading  dated  to-day?  Ten  cases  of 
'scrap  iron'  from  New  York  to  Boston — a  long 
chance  for  such  valuable  '  scrap, '  senor,  but  I  sup- 
pose you  had  to  get  the  money  away  from  New 
York,  at  any  risk." 

"And  Senora  Mendez?"  I  asked  as  my  mind  in- 
voluntarily reverted  to  the  brilliantly  lighted 
room  up-town.  "What  part  did  she  have  in  the 
plot  against  Guerrero?" 

Torreon  stood  sullenly  silent.  Kennedy 
reached  in  another  of  Torreon 's  pockets  and  drew 
out  a  third  little  silver  box  of  mescal  buttons. 
Holding  all  three  of  the  boxes,  identically  the 
same,  before  us  he  remarked:  "Evidently  Tor- 
reon was  not  averse  to  having  his  victim  under 
the  influence  of  mescal  as  much  as  possible.  He 
must  have  forced  it  on  him — all's  fair  in  love  and 
revolution,  I  suppose.  I  believe  he  brought  him 
down  here  under  the  influence  of  mescal  last 
night,  obtained  the  power  of  attorney,  and  left 


354  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

him  here  to  die  of  the  mescal  intoxication.  It 
was  just  a  case  of  too  strong  a  hold  of  the  mescal 
—the  artificial  paradise  was  too  alluring  to  Guer- 
rero, and  Torreon  knew  it  and  tried  to  profit  by 
it  to  the  extent  of  half  a  million  dollars." 

It  was  more  than  I  could  grasp  at  the  instant. 
The  impossible  had  happened.  I  had  seen  the 
dead — literally — brought  back  to  life  and  the  se- 
cret which  the  criminal  believed  buried  wrung 
from  the  grave. 

Kennedy  must  have  noted  the  puzzled  look  on 
my  face.  "Walter,"  he  said,  casually,  as  he 
wrapped  up  his  instruments,  "don't  stand  there 
gaping  like  Billikin.  Our  part  in  this  case  is  fin- 
ished— at  least  mine  is.  But  I  suspect  from  some 
of  the  glances  I  have  seen  you  steal  at  various 
times  that — well,  perhaps  you  would  like  a  few 
moments  in  a  real  paradise.  I  saw  a  telephone 
down-stairs.  Go  call  up  Miss  Guerrero  and  tell 
her  her  father  is  alive — and  innocent." 


XII 

THE  STEEL  DOOR 

IT  was  what,  in  college,  we  used  to  call  "good 
football  weather" —  a  crisp,  autumn  afternoon 
that  sent  the  blood  tingling  through  brain  and 
muscle.  Kennedy  and  I  were  enjoying  a  stroll 
on  the  drive,  dividing  our  attention  between  the 
glowing  red  sunset  across  the  Hudson  and  the 
string  of  homeward-bound  automobiles  on  thei 
broad  parkway.  Suddenly  a  huge  black  touring- 
car  marked  with  big  letters,  "P.  D.  N.  Y.,"  shot 
past. 

"Joy-riding  again  in  one  of  the  city's  cars,"  I 
remarked.  "I  thought  the  last  Police  Depart- 
ment shake-up  had  put  a  stop  to  that." 

"Perhaps  it  has,"  returned  Kennedy.  "Did 
you  see  who  was  in  the  car?" 

"No,  but  I  see  it  has  turned  and  is  coming 
back." 

"It  was  Inspector — I  mean,  First  Deputy 
O'Connor.  I  thought  he  recognised  us  as  he 
whizzed  along,  and  I  guess  he  did,  too.  Ah,  con- 
gratulations, O'Connor!  I  haven't  had  a  chance 
to  tell  you  before  how  pleased  I  was  to  learn  you 
had  been  appointed  first  deputy.  It  ought  to 

355 


356  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

have  been  commissioner,  though,"  added  Ken- 
nedy. 

"Congratulations  nothing,"  rejoined  O'Con- 
nor. "Just  another  new  deal — election  coming 
on,  mayor  must  make  a  show  of  getting  some  re- 
form done,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  So  he  be- 
gan with  the  Police  Department,  and  here  I  am, 
first  deputy.  But,  say,  Kennedy,"  he  added, 
dropping  his  voice,  "I've  a  little  job  on  my  mind 
'eshat  I'd  like  to  pull  off  in  about  as  spectacular  a 
fashion  as  I — as  you  know  how.  I  want  to  make 
good,  conspicuously  good,  at  the  start — under- 
stand? Maybe  I'll  be  'broke'  for  it  and  sent  to 
pounding  the  pavements  of  Dismissalville,  but  I 
don't  care,  I'll  take  a  chance.  On  the  level,  Ken- 
nedy, it's  a  big  thing,  and  it  ought  to  be  done. 
Will  you  help  me  put  it  across  ? ' ' 

"What  is  it?"  asked  Kennedy  with  a  twinkle 
in  his  eye  at  O'Connor's  estimate  of  the  security 
of  his  tenure  of  office. 

O'Connor  drew  us  away  from  the  automobile 
toward  the  stone  parapet  overlooking  the  railroad 
and  river  far  below,  and  out  of  earshot  of  the  de- 
partment chauffeur.  "I  want  to  pull  off  a  suc- 
cessful raid  on  the  Vesper  Club,"  he  whispered 
earnestly,  scanning  our  faces. 

"Good  heavens,  man,"  I  ejaculated,  "don't  you 
know  that  Senator  Danfield  is  interested  in — " 

"Jameson,"  interrupted  O'Connor  reproach- 
fully, "I  said  'on  the  level'  a  few  moments  ago, 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  357 

and  I  meant  it.  Senator  Danfield  be — well,  any- 
how, if  I  don't  do  it  the  district  attorney  will, 
with  the  aid  of  the  Dowling  law,  and  I  am  going 
to  beat  him  to  it,  that's  all.  There's  too  much 
money  being  lost  at  the  Vesper  Club,  anyhow.  It 
won't  hurt  Danfield  to  be  taught  a  lesson  not  to 
run  such  a  phony  game.  I  may  like  to  put  up  a 
quiet  bet  myself  on  the  ponies  now  and  then — I 
won't  say  I  don't,  but  this  thing  of  Danfield 's  has 
got  beyond  all  reason.  It's  the  crookedest  gam- 
bling joint  in  the  city,  at  least  judging  by  the 
stories  they  tell  of  losses  there.  And  so  beastly 
aristocratic,  too.  Read  that." 

O'Connor  shoved  a  letter  into  Kennedy's  hand, 
a  dainty  perfumed  and  monogramed  little  mis- 
sive addressed  in  a  feminine  hand.  It  was  such 
a  letter  as  comes  by  the  thousand  to  the  police  in 
the  course  of  a  year,  though  seldom  from  ladies 
of  the  smart  set : 

Dear  Sir:  I  notice  in  the  newspapers  this  morning 
that  you  have  just  been  appointed  first  deputy  commis- 
sioner of  police  and  that  you  have  been  ordered  to  sup- 
press gambling  in  New  York.  For  the  love  that  you 
must  still  bear  toward  your  own  mother,  listen  to  the 
story  of  a  mother  worn  with  anxiety  for  her  only  son, 
and  if  there  is  any  justice  or  righteousness  in  this  great 
city  close  up  a  gambling  hell  that  is  sending  to  ruin 
scores  of  our  finest  young  men.  No  doubt  you  know  or 
have  heard  of  my  family — the  DeLongs  are  not  un- 
known in  New  York.  Perhaps  you  have  also  heard  of 


358  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

the  losses  of  my  son  Percival  at  the  Vesper  Club.  They 
are  fast  becoming  the  common  talk  of  our  set.  I  am  not 
rich,  Mr.  Commissioner,  in  spite  of  our  social  position, 
but  I  am  human,  as  human  as  a  mother  in  any  station 
of  life,  and  oh,  if  there  is  any  way,  close  up  that  gilded 
society  resort  that  is  dissipating  our  small  fortune,  ruin- 
ing an  only  son,  and  slowly  bringing  to  the  grave  a  grey- 
haired  widow,  as  worthy  of  protection  as  any  mother 
of  the  poor  whose  plea  has  closed  up  a  little  poolroom 
or  low  policy  shop. 

Sincerely, 

(Mrs.)  JULIA  M.  DELONG. 

p.g.  —  Please  keep  this  confidential  —  at  least  from 
my  son  Percival. 

J.  M.  DEL. 

"Well,"  said  Kennedy,  as  lie  handed  back  the 
letter,  " O'Connor,  if  you  do  it,  I'll  take  back  all 
the  hard  things  I've  ever  said  about  the  police 
system.  Young  DeLong  was  in  one  of  my  classes 
at  the  university,  until  he  was  expelled  for  that 
last  mad  prank  of  his.  There's  more  to  that  boy 
than  most  people  think,  but  he's  the  wildest  scion 
of  wealth  I  have  ever  come  in  contact  with.  How 
are  you  going  to  pull  off  your  raid — is  it  to  be 
down  through  the  skylight  or  up  from  the  cel- 
lar!" 

" Kennedy,"  replied  O'Connor  in  the  same  re- 
proachful tone  with  which  he  had  addressed  me, 
1  'talk  sense.  I'm  in  earnest.  You  know  the  Ves- 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  359 

per  Club  is  barred  and  barricaded  like  the  Na- 
tional City  Bank.  It  isn't  one  of  those  common 
gambling  joints  which  depend  for  protection  on 
.what  we  call  'ice-box  doors.'  It's  proof  against 
all  the  old  methods.  Axes  and  sledge-hammers 
would  make  no  impression  there." 

"Your  predecessor  had  some  success  at  open- 
ing doors  with  a  hydraulic  jack,  I  believe,  in  some 
very  difficult  raids,"  put  in  Kennedy. 

"A  hydraulic  jack  wouldn't  do  for  the  Vesper 
Club,  I'm  afraid,"  remarked  O'Connor  wearily. 
"Why,  sir,  that  place  has  been  proved  bomb- 
proof— bomb-proof,  sir.  You  remember  recently 
the  so-called  'gamblers'  war'  in  which  some  rivals 
exploded  a  bomb  on  the  steps  ?  It  did  more  dam- 
age to  the  house  next  door  than  to  the  club.  How- 
ever, I  can  get  past  the  outer  door,  I  think,  even 
if  it  is  strong.  But  inside — you  must  have  heard 
of  it — is  the  famous  steel  door,  three  inches  thick, 
made  of  armour-plate.  It's  no  use  to  try  it  at  all 
unless  we  can  pass  that  door  with  reasonable 
quickness.  All  the  evidence  we  shall  get  will  be 
of  an  innocent  social  club-room  down-stairs.  The 
gambling  is  all  on  the  second  floor,  beyond  this 
door,  in  a  room  without  a  window  in  it.  Surely 
you've  heard  of  that  famous  gambling-room,  with 
its  perfect  system  of  artificial  ventilation  and 
electric  lighting  that  makes  it  rival  noonday  at 
midnight.  And  don't  tell  me  I've  got  to  get  on 
the  other  side  of  the  door  by  strategy,  either.  It 


360  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

is  strategy-proof.  The  system  of  lookouts  is  per- 
fect. No,  force  is  necessary,  but  it  must  not  be 
destructive  of  life  or  property — or,  by  heaven, 
I'd  drive  up  there  and  riddle  the  place  with  a 
fourteen-inch  gun,"  exclaimed  O'Connor. 

"H'm!"  mused  Kennedy  as  he  flicked  the  ashes 
off  his  cigar  and  meditatively  watched  a  passing 
freight-train  on  the  railroad  below  us.  "  There 
goes  a  car  loaded  with  tons  and  tons  of  scrap- 
iron.  You  want  me  to  scrap  that  three-inch  steel 
door,  do  you?" 

1  'Kennedy,  I'll  buy  that  particular  scrap  from 
you  at — almost  its  weight  in  gold.  The  fact  is, 
I  have  a  secret  fund  at  my  disposal  such  as 
former  commissioners  have  asked  for  in  vain.  I 
can  afford  to  pay  you  well,  as  well  as  any  private 
client,  and  I  hear  you  have  had  some  good  fees 
lately.  Only  deliver  the  goods." 

"No,"  answered  Kennedy,  rather  piqued,  "it 
isn't  money  that  I  am  after.  I  merely  wanted  to 
be  sure  that  you  are  in  earnest.  I  can  get  you 
past  that  door  as  if  it  were  made  of  green  baize." 

It  was  O'Connor's  turn  to  look  incredulous,  but 
as  Kennedy  apparently  meant  exactly  what  he 
said,  he  simply  asked,  "And  will  you?" 

"I  will  do  it  to-night  if  you  say  so,"  replied 
Kennedy  quietly.  "Are  you  ready?" 

For  answer  O'Connor  simply  grasped  Craig's 
hand,  as  if  to  seal  the  compact. 

' '  All  right,  then, ' '  continued  Kennedy.    ' '  Send 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  361 

a  furniture-van,  one  of  those  closed  vans  that  the 
storage  warehouses  use,  up  to  my  laboratory  any 
time  before  seven  o'clock.  How  many  men  will 
you  need  in  the  raid?  Twelve?  Will  a  van  hold 
that  many  comfortably?  I'll  want  to  put  some 
apparatus  in  it,  but  that  won't  take  much  room." 

"Why,  yes,  I  think  so,"  answered  O'Connor. 
"I'll  get  a  well-padded  van  so  that  they  won't 
be  badly  jolted  by  the  ride  down-town.  By 
George !  Kennedy,  I  see  you  know  more  of  that 
side  of  police  strategy  than  I  gave  you  credit 
for." 

"Then  have  the  men  drop  into  my  laboratory 
singly  about  the  same  time.  You  can  arrange 
that  so  that  it  will  not  look  suspicious,  so  far  up- 
town. It  will  be  dark,  anyhow.  Perhaps, 
O'Connor,  you  can  make  up  as  the  driver  your- 
self— anyhow,  get  one  you  can  trust  absolutely. 
Then  have  the  van  down  near  the  corner  of 
Broadway  below  the  club,  driving  slowly  along 
about  the  time  the  theatre  crowd  is  out.  Leave 
the  rest  to  me.  I  will  give  you  or  the  driver 
orders  when  the  time  comes." 

As  0  'Connor  thanked  Craig,  he  remarked  with- 
out a  shade  of  insincerity,  "Kennedy,  talk  about 
being  commissioner,  you  ought  to  be  commis- 
sioner." 

"Wait  till  I  deliver  the  goods,"  answered 
Craig  simply.  "I  may  fall  down  and  bring  you 
nothing  but  a  lawsuit  for  damages  for  unlawful 


362  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

entry  or  unjust  persecution,  or  whatever  they  call 

it." 

"I'll  take  a  chance  at  that,"  called  back  O'Con- 
nor as  he  jumped  into  his  car  and  directed, 
"Headquarters,  quick." 

As  the  car  disappeared,  Kennedy  filled  his 
lungs  with  air  as  if  reluctant  to  leave  the  drive. 
"Our  constitutional,"  he  remarked,  "is  abruptly 
at  an  end,  Walter." 

Then  he  laughed,  as  he  looked  about  him. 

"What  a  place  in  which  to  plot  a  raid  on  Dan- 
field's  Vesper  Club!  Why,  the  nurse-maids  have 
hardly  got  the  children  all  in  for  supper  and  bed. 
It's  incongruous.  Well,  I  must  go  over  to  the 
laboratory  and  get  some  things  ready  to  put  in 
that  van  with  the  men.  Meet  me  about  half-past 
seven,  Walter,  up  in  the  room,  all  togged  up. 
We'll  dine  at  the  Cafe  Riviera  to-night  in  style. 
And,  by  the  way,  you're  quite  a  man  about  town 
— you  must  know  someone  who  can  introduce  ua 
into  the  Vesper  Club." 

"But,  Craig,"  I  demurred,  "if  there  is  any 
rough  work  as  a  result,  it  might  queer  me  with 
them.  They  might  object  to  being  used — " 

"Oh,  that  will  be  all  right.  I  just  want  to  look 
the  place  over  and  lose  a  few  chips  in  a  good 
cause.  No,  it  won't  queer  any  of  your  Star  con- 
nections. We'll  be  on  the  outside  when  the  time 
comes  for  anything  to  happen.  In  fact  I 
shouldn't  wonder  if  your  story  would  make  you 


THE   STEEL  DOOE  363 

all  the  more  solid  with  the  sports.  I  take  all  the 
responsibility;  you  can  have  the  glory.  You 
know  they  like  to  hear  the  inside  gossip  of  such 
things,  after  the  event.  Try  it.  Kemember,  at 
seven-thirty.  We'll  be  a  little  late  at  dinner,  but 
never  mind;  it  will  be  early  enough  for  the  club." 

Left  to  my  own  devices  I  determined  to  do  a 
little  detective  work  on  my  own  account,  and  not 
only  did  I  succeed  in  finding  an  acquaintance  who 
agreed  to  introduce  us  at  the  Vesper  Club  that 
night  about  nine  o'clock,  but  I  also  learned  that 
Percival  DeLong  was  certain  to  be  there  that 
night,  too.  I  was  necessarily  vague  about  Ken- 
nedy, for  fear  my  friend  might  have  heard  of 
some  of  his  exploits,  but  fortunately  he  did  not 
prove  inquisitive. 

I  hurried  back  to  our  apartment  and  was  in  the 
process  of  transforming  myself  into  a  full-fledged 
boulevardier,  when  Kennedy  arrived  in  an  ex- 
tremely cheerful  frame  of  mind.  So  far,  his 
preparations  had  progressed  very  favourably,  I 
guessed,  and  I  was  quite  elated  when  he  compli- 
mented me  on  what  I  had  accomplished  in  the 
meantime. 

"  Pretty  tough  for  the  fellows  who  are  con- 
demned to  ride  around  in  that  van  for  four  mor- 
tal hours,  though,"  he  said  as  he  hurried  into  his 
evening  clothes,  "but  they  won't  be  riding  all  the 
time.  The  driver  will  make  frequent  stops." 

I  was  so  busy  that  I  paid  little  attention  to  him 


364  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

until  lie  had  nearly  completed  his  toilet.  I  gave 
a  gasp. 

"Why,  whatever  are  you  doing?"  I  exclaimed 
as  I  glanced  into  his  room. 

There  stood  Kennedy  arrayed  in  all  the  glory 
of  a  sharp-pointed  moustache  and  a  goatee.  He 
had  put  on  evening  clothes  of  decidedly  Parisian 
cut,  clothes  which  he  had  used  abroad  and  had 
brought  back  with  him,  but  which  I  had  never 
known  him  to  wear  since  he  came  back.  On  a 
chair  reposed  a  chimney-pot  hat  that  would  have 
been  pronounced  faultless  on  the  "continong," 
but  was  unknown,  except  among  impresarios,  on 
Broadway. 

Kennedy  shrugged  his  shoulders — he  even  had 
the  shrug. 

"Figure  to  yourself,  monsieur,"  he  said.  "Ze 
great  Kennedy,  ze  detectif  Americain — to  put  it 
tersely  in  our  own  vernacular,  wouldn't  it  be  a 
fool  thing  for  me  to  appear  at  the  Vesper  Club 
where  I  should  surely  be  recognised  by  someone 
if  I  went  in  my  ordinary  clothes  and  features? 
Un  faux  pas,  at  the  start?  Jamais!" 

There  was  nothing  to  do  but  agree,  and  I  was 
glad  that  I  had  been  discreetly  reticent  about  my 
companion  in  talking  with  the  friend  who  was  to 
gain  us  entrance  to  the  Avernus  beyond  the  steel 
door. 

We  met  my  friend  at  the  Eiviera  and  dined 
sumptuously.  Fortunately  he  seemed  decidedly 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  365 

impressed  with  my  friend  Monsieur  Kay — I  could 
do  no  better  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  than  take 
Kennedy's  initial,  which  seemed  to  serve.  We 
progressed  amicably  from  oysters  and  soup  down 
to  coffee,  cigars,  and  liqueurs,  and  I  succeeded  in 
swallowing  Kennedy's  tales  of  Monte  Carlo  and 
Ostend  and  Ascot  without  even  a  smile.  He  must 
have  heard  them  somewhere,  and  treasured  them 
up  for  just  such  an  occasion,  but  he  told  them  in 
a  manner  that  was  verisimilitude  itself,  using  per- 
fect English  with  just  the  trace  of  an  accent  at 
the  right  places. 

At  last  it  was  time  to  saunter  around  to  the 
[Vesper  Club  without  seeming  to  be  too  indecently 
early.  The  theatres  were  not  yet  out,  but  my 
friend  said  play  was  just  beginning  at  the  club 
and  would  soon  be  in  full  swing. 

I  had  a  keen  sense  of  wickedness  as  we 
mounted  the  steps  in  the  yellow  flare  of  the  flam- 
ing arc-light  on  the  Broadway  corner  not  far  be- 
low us.  A  heavy,  grated  door  swung  open  at  the 
practised  signal  of  my  friend,  and  an  obsequious 
negro  servant  stood  bowing  and  pronouncing  his 
name  in  the  sombre  mahogany  portal  beyond, 
with  its  green  marble  pillars  and  handsome  dec- 
orations. A  short  parley  followed,  after  which 
we  entered,  my  friend  having  apparently  satisfied 
someone  that  we  were  all  right. 

We  did  not  stop  to  examine  the  first  floor, 
which  doubtless  was  innocent  enough,  but  turned 


366  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

quickly  up  a  flight  of  steps.  At  the  foot  of  the 
broad  staircase  Kennedy  paused  to  examine  some 
rich  carvings,  and  I  felt  him  nudge  me.  I  turned. 
It  was  an  enclosed  staircase,  with  walls  that 
looked  to  be  of  re-enforced  concrete.  Swung  back 
on  hinges  concealed  like  those  of  a  modern  bur- 
glar-proof safe  was  the  famous  steel  door. 

We  did  not  wish  to  appear  to  be  too  interested, 
yet  a  certain  amount  of  curiosity  was  only 
proper. 

My  friend  paused  on  the  steps,  turned,  and 
came  back. 

"You're  perfectly  safe,"  he  smiled,  tapping 
the  door  with  his  cane  with  a  sort  of  affectionate 
respect.  "It  would  take  the  police  ages  to  get 
past  that  barrier,  which  would  be  swung  shut  and 
bolted  the  moment  the  lookout  gave  the  alarm. 
But  there  has  never  been  any  trouble.  The  police 
know  that  it  is  so  far,  no  farther.  Besides,"  he 
added  with  a  wink  to  me,  "you  know,  Senator 
Danfield  wouldn't  like  this  pretty  little  door  even 
scratched.  Come  up,  I  think  I  hear  DeLong's 
voice  up-stairs.  You've  heard  of  him,  monsieur? 
It's  said  his  luck  has  changed.  I'm  anxious  to 
find  out." 

Quickly  he  led  the  way  up  the  handsome  stair- 
case and  into  a  large,  lofty,  richly  furnished 
room.  Everywhere  there  were  thick,  heavy  car- 
pets on  the  floors,  into  which  your  feet  sank  with1 
an  air  of  satisfying  luxury. 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  367 

The  room  into  which  we  entered  was  indeed 
absolutely  windowless.  It  was  a  room  built 
within  the  original  room  of  the  old  house.  Thus 
the  windows  overlooking  the  street  from  the  sec- 
ond floor  in  reality  bore  no  relation  to  it.  For 
light  it  depended  on  a  complete  oval  of  lights 
overhead  so  arranged  as  to  be  themselves  invis- 
ible, but  shining  through  richly  stained  glass  and 
conveying  the  illusion  of  a  slightly  clouded  noon- 
day. The  absence  of  windows  was  made  up  for, 
as  I  learned  later,  by  a  ventilating  device  so  per- 
fect that,  although  everyone  was  smoking,  a  most 
fastidious  person  could  scarcely  have  been 
offended  by  the  odour  of  tobacco. 

Of  course  I  did  not  notice  all  this  at  first. 
What  I  did  notice,  however,  was  a  faro-layout 
and  a  hazard-board,  but  as  no  one  was  playing  at 
either,  my  eye  quickly  travelled  to  a  roulette- 
table  which  stretched  along  the  middle  of  the 
room.  Some  ten  or  a  dozen  men  in  evening 
clothes  were  gathered  watching  with  intent  faces 
the  spinning  wheel.  There  was  no  money  on  the 
table,  nothing  but  piles  of  chips  of  various  de- 
nominations. Another  thing  that  surprised  me 
as  I  looked  was  that  the  tense  look  on  the  faces 
of  the  players  was  anything  but  the  feverish,  hag- 
gard gaze  I  had  expected.  In  fact,  they  were 
sleek,  well-fed,  typical  prosperous  New-Yorkers 
rather  inclined  to  the  noticeable  in  dress  and 
carrying  their  avoirdupois  as  if  life  was  an  easy 


368  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

game  with  them.  Most  of  them  evidently  be- 
longed to  the  financial  and  society  classes.  There 
were  no  tragedies;  the  tragedies  were  elsewhere 
— in  their  offices,  homes,  in  the  courts,  anywhere, 
but  not  here  at  the  club.  Here  all  was  life,  light, 
and  laughter. 

For  the  benefit  of  those  not  acquainted  with  the 
roulette-wheel — and  I  may  as  well  confess  that 
most  of  my  own  knowledge  was  gained  in  that 
one  crowded  evening — I  may  say  that  it  consists, 
briefly,  of  a  wooden  disc  very  nicely  balanced  and 
turning  in  the  centre  of  a  cavity  set  into  a  table 
like  a  circular  wash-basin,  with  an  outer  rim 
turned  slightly  inward.  The  " croupier"  re- 
volves the  wheel  to  the  right.  With  a  quick  mo- 
tion of  his  middle  finger  he  flicks  a  marble,  usu- 
ally of  ivory,  to  the  left.  At  the  Vesper  Club,  al- 
ways up-to-date,  the  ball  was  of  platinum,  not  of 
ivory.  The  disc  with  its  sloping  sides  is  pro- 
vided with  a  number  of  brass  rods,  some  perpen- 
dicular, some  horizontal.  As  the  ball  and  the 
wheel  lose  momentum  the  ball  strikes  against  the 
rods  and  finally  is  deflected  into  one  of  the  many 
little  pockets  or  stalls  facing  the  rim  of  the  wheel. 

There  are  thirty-eight  of  these  pockets;  two 
are  marked  "0"  and  "00,"  the  others  num- 
bered from  one  to  thirty-six  in  an  irregular  and 
confusing  order  and  painted  alternately  red  and 
black.  At  each  end  of  the  table  are  thirty-six 
large  squares  correspondingly  numbered  and 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  369 

coloured.  The  "0"  and  "00"  are  of  a  neutral 
colour.  Whenever  the  ball  falls  in  the  "0"  or 
"00"  the  bank  takes  the  stakes,  or  sweeps  the 
the  board.  The  Monte  Carlo  wheel  has  only 
one  "0,"  while  the  typical  American  has  two, 
and  the  Chinese  has  four. 

To  one  like  myself  who  had  read  of  the  Conti- 
nental gambling-houses  with  the  clink  of  gold 
pieces  on  the  table,  and  the  croupier  with  his 
wooden  rake  noisily  raking  in  the  winnings  of  the 
bank,  the  comparative  silence  of  the  American 
game  comes  as  a  surprise. 

As  we  advanced,  we  heard  only  the  rattle  of 
the  ball,  the  click  of  the  chips,  and  the  monoto- 
nous tone  of  the  spinner:  " Twenty-three,  black. 
Eight,  red.  Seventeen,  black."  It  was  almost 
like  the  boys  in  a  broker's  office  calling  off  the 
quotations  of  the  ticker  and  marking  them  up  on 
the  board. 

Leaning  forward,  almost  oblivious  to  the  rest, 
was  Percival  DeLong,  a  tall,  lithe,  handsome 
young  man,  whose  boyish  face  ill  comported  with 
the  marks  of  dissipation  clearly  outlined  on  it. 
Such  a  boy,  it  flashed  across  my  mind,  ought  to 
be  studying  the  possible  plays  of  football  of  an 
evening  in  the  field-house  after  his  dinner  at  the 
training-table,  rather  than  the  possible  gyrations 
of  the  little  platinum  ball  on  the  wheel. 

"Curse  the  luck!"  he  exclaimed,  as  "17"  ap- 
peared again. 


370  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

A  Hebrew  banker  staked  a  pile  of  chips  on  the 
"17"  to  come  up  a  third  time.  A  murmur  of  ap- 
plause at  his  nerve  ran  through  the  circle.  De- 
Long  hesitated,  as  one  who  thought,  "Seventeen 
has  come  out  twice — the  odds  against  its  coming 
again  are  too  great,  even  though  the  winnings 
would  be  fabulous,  for  a  good  stake."  He  placed 
his  next  bet  on  another  number. 

"He's  playing  Lord  Rosslyn's  system,  to- 
night," whispered  my  friend. 

The  wheel  spun,  the  ball  rolled,  and  the 
croupier  called  again,  "Seventeen,  black."  A 
tremor  of  excitement  ran  through,  the  crowd.  It 
was  almost  unprecedented. 

DeLong,  with  a  stifled  oath,  leaned  back  and 
scanned  the  faces  about  the  table. 

"And  '17'  has  precisely  the  same  chance  of 
turning  up  in  the  next  spin  as  if  it  had  not  al- 
ready had  a  run  of  three,"  said  a  voice  at  my  el- 
bow. 

It  was  Kennedy.  The  roulette-table  needs  no 
introduction  when  curious  sequences  are  afoot. 
All  are  friends. 

"That's  the  theory  of  Sir  Hiram  Maxim,"  com- 
mented my  friend,  as  he  excused  himself  reluc- 
tantly for  another  appointment.  "But  no  true 
gambler  will  believe  it,  monsieur,  or  at  least  act 
on  it." 

All  eyes  were  turned  on  Kennedy,  who  made  a 
gesture  of  polite  deprecation,  as  if  the  remark  of 


THE   STEEL   DOOR  371 

my  friend  were  true,  but — he  nonchalantly  placed 
his  chips  on  the4'  17. " 

"The  odds  against  '17'  appearing  four  consec- 
utive times  are  some  millions,"  he  went  on,  "and 
yet,  having  appeared  three  times,  it  is  just  as 
likely  to  appear  again  as  before.  It  is  the  usual 
practice  to  avoid  a  number  that  has  had  a  run, 
on  the  theory  that  some  other  number  is  more 
likely  to  come  up  than  it  is.  That  would  be  the 
case  if  it  were  drawing  balls  from  a  bag  full  of 
red  and  black  balls — the  more  red  ones  drawn 
the  smaller  the  chance  of  drawing  another  red 
one.  But  if  the  balls  are  put  back  in  the  bag 
after  being  drawn  the  chances  of  drawing  a  red 
one  after  three  have  been  drawn  are  exactly  the 
same  as  ever.  If  we  toss  a  cent  and  heads  ap- 
pear twelve  times,  that  does  not  have  the  slightest 
effect  on  the  thirteenth  toss — there  is  still  an 
even  chance  that  it,  too,  will  be  heads.  So  if  '17* 
had  come  up  five  times  to-night,  it  would  be  just 
as  likely  to  come  the  sixth  as  if  the  previous  five 
had  not  occurred,  and  that  despite  the  fact  that 
before  it  has  appeared  at  all  odds  against  a  run 
of  the  same  number  six  times  in  succession  are 
about  two  billion,  four  hundred  and  ninety-six 
million,  and  some  thousands.  Most  systems  are 
based  on  the  old  persistent  belief  that  occur- 
rences of  chance  are  affected  in  some  way  by  oc- 
currences immediately  preceding,  but  discon- 
nected physically.  If  we've  had  a  run  of  black 


372  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

for  twenty  times,  system  says  play  the  red  for 
the  twenty-first.  But  black  is  just  as  likely  to 
turn  up  the  twenty-first  as  if  it  were  the  first  play 
of  all.  The  confusion  arises  because  a  run  of 
twenty  on  the  black  should  happen  once  in  one 
million,  forty-eight  thousand,  five  hundred  and 
seventy-six  coups.  It  would  take  ten  years  to 
make  that  many  coups,  and  the  run  of  twenty 
might  occur  once  or  any  number  of  times  in  it. 
It  is  only  when  one  deals  with  infinitely  large 
numbers  of  coups  that  one  can  count  on  infinitely 
small  variations  in  the  mathematical  results. 
This  game  does  not  go  on  for  infinity — therefore 
anything,  everything,  may  happen.  Systems  are 
based  on  the  infinite ;  we  play  in  the  finite. '  ' 

"You  talk  like  a  professor  I  had  at  the  univer- 
sity," ejaculated  DeLong  contemptuously  as 
Craig  finished  his  disquisition  on  the  practical 
fallibility  of  theoretically  infallible  systems. 
Again  DeLong  carefully  avoided  the  "17,"  as 
well  as  the  black. 

The  wheel  spun  again;  the  ball  rolled.  The 
knot  of  spectators  around  the  table  watched  with 
bated  breath. 

Seventeen  won ! 

As  Kennedy  piled  up  his  winnings  supercili- 
ously, without  even  the  appearance  of  triumph,  a 
man  behind  me  whispered,  "A  foreign  nobleman 
with  a  system — watch  him." 

"Non,  monsieur,"  said  Kennedy  quickly,  hav- 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  373 

ing  overheard  the  remark,  "  no  system,  sir. 
There  is  only  one  system  of  which  I  know." 

"What?"  asked  DeLong  eagerly. 

Kennedy  staked  a  large  sum  on  the  red  to  win. 
The  black  came  up,  and  he  lost.  He  doubled  the 
stake  and  played  again,  and  again  lost.  With 
amazing  calmness  Craig  kept  right  on  doubling. 

"The  martingale,"  I  heard  the  man  whisper 
behind  me.  "In  other  words,  double  or  quit." 

Kennedy  was  now  in  for  some  hundreds,  a  sum 
that  was  sufficiently  large  for  him,  but  he  doubled 
again,  still  cheerfully  playing  the  red,  and  the 
red  won.  As  he  gathered  up  his  chips  he  rose. 

"That's  the  only  system,"  he  said  simply. 

"But,  go  on,  go  on,"  came  the  chorus  from 
about  the  table. 

"No,"  said  Kennedy  quietly,  "that  is  part  of 
the  system,  too — to  quit  when  you  have  won 
back  your  stakes  and  a  little  more." 

"Huh!"  exclaimed  DeLong  in  disgust.  "Sup- 
pose you  were  in  for  some  thousands — you 
wouldn't  quit.  If  you  had  real  sporting  blood 
you  wouldn't  quit,  anyhow!" 

Kennedy  calmly  passed  over  the  open  insult, 
letting  it  be  understood  that  he  ignored  this  beard- 
less youth. 

"There  is  no  way  you  can  beat  the  game  in  the 
long  run  if  you  keep  at  it,"  he  answered  simply. 
"It  is  mathematically  impossible.  Consider. 
We  are  Croesuses — we  hire  players  to  stake 


374  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

money  for  us  on  every  possible  number  at  every 
coup.  How  do  we  come  out?  If  there  are  no 
*0'  or  '00,'  we  come  out  after  each  coup  pre- 
cisely where  we  started — we  are  paying  our  own 
money  back  and  forth  among  ourselves ;  we  have 
neither  more  nor  less.  But  with  the  '  0 '  and  '  00 ' 
the  bank  sweeps  the  board  every  so  often.  It  is 
only  a  question  of  time  when,  after  paying  our 
money  back  and  forth  among  ourselves,  it  has  all 
filtered  through  the  '0'  and  '00'  into  the  bank. 
It  is  not  a  game  of  chance  for  the  bank — ah,  it  is 
exact,  mathematical — c'est  une  question  d'  arith- 
metique,  seulement,  n'est-ce  pas,  messieurs?" 

" Perhaps,"  admitted  DeLong,  "but  it  doesn't 
explain  why  I  am  losing  to-night  while  everyone 
else  is  winning." 

"We  are  not  winning,"  persisted  Craig. 
"After  I  have  had  a  bite  to  eat  I  will  demon- 
strate how  to  lose — by  keeping  on  playing."  He 
led  the  way  to  the  cafe. 

DeLong  was  too  intent  on  the  game  to  leave, 
even  ;Tor  refreshments.  Now  and  then  I  saw  him 
beckon  to  an  attendant,  who  brought  him  a  stiff 
drink  of  whiskey.  For  a  moment  his  play  seemed 
a  little  better,  then  he  would  drop  back  into  his 
hopeless  losing.  For  some  reason  or  other  his 
"system"  failed  absolutely. 

"You  see,  he  is  hopeless,"  mused  Kennedy  over 
our  light  repast.  "And  yet  of  all  gambling 
games  roulette  offers  the  player  the  best  odds, 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  375 

far  better  than  horse-racing,  for  instance.  Our 
method  has  usually  been  to  outlaw  roulette  and 
permit  horse-racing ;  in  other  words,  suppress  the 
more  favourable  and  permit  the  less  favourable. 
However,  we're  doing  better  now;  we're  sup- 
pressing both.  Of  course  what  I  say  applies  only 
to  roulette  when  it  is  honestly  played — DeLong 
would  lose  anyhow,  I  fear." 

I  started  at  Kennedy's  tone  and  whispered 
hastily:  "What  do  you  mean?  Do  you  think  the 
wheel  is  crooked?" 

"I  haven't  a  doubt  of  it,"  he  replied  in  an 
undertone.  "That  run  of  '17'  might  happen — 
yes.  But  it  is  improbable.  They  let  me  win  be- 
cause I  was  a  new  player — new  players  always 
win  at  first.  It  is  proverbial,  but  the  man  who 
is  running  this  game  has  made  it  look  like  a  plati- 
tude. To  satisfy  myself  on  that  point  I  am  going 
to  play  again — until  I  have  lost  my  winnings  and 
am  just  square  with  the  game.  When  I  reach  the 
point  that  I  am  convinced  that  some  crooked  work 
is  going  on  I  am  going  to  try  a  little  experiment, 
Walter.  I  want  you  to  stand  close  to  me  so  that 
no  one  can  see  what  I  am  doing.  Do  just  as  I 
will  indicate  to  you." 

The  gambling-room  was  now  fast  filling  up  with 
the  first  of  the  theatre  crowd.  DeLong 's  table 
was  the  centre  of  attraction,  owing  to  the  high 
play.  A  group  of  young  men  of  his  set  were  com- 
miserating with  him  on  his  luck  and  discussing  it 


376  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

with  the  finished  air  of  roues  of  double  their 
ages.  He  was  doggedly  following  his  system. 

Kennedy  and  I  approached. 

"Ah,  here  is  the  philosophical  stranger  again," 
DeLong  exclaimed,  catching  sight  of  Kennedy. 
"Perhaps  he  can  enlighten  us  on  how  to  win  at 
roulette  by  playing  his  own  system." 

"Au  contraire,  monsieur,  let  me  demonstrate 
how  to  lose,"  answered  Craig  with  a  smile  that 
showed  a  row  of  faultless  teeth  beneath  his  black 
moustache,  decidedly  foreign. 

Kennedy  played  and  lost,  and  lost  again ;  then 
he  won,  but  in  the  main  he  lost.  After  one  par- 
ticularly large  loss  I  felt  his  arm  on  mine,  draw- 
ing me  closely  to  him.  DeLong  had  taken  a  sort 
of  grim  pleasure  in  the  fact  that  Kennedy,  too, 
was  losing.  I  found  that  Craig  had  paused  in 
his  play  at  a  moment  when  DeLong  had  staked  a 
large  sum  that  a  number  below  "18"  would  turn 
up — for  five  plays  the  numbers  had  been  between 
"18"  and  "36."  Curious  to  see  what  Craig  was 
doing,  I  looked  cautiously  down  between  us.  All 
eyes  were  fixed  on  the  wheel.  Kennedy  was  hold- 
ing an  ordinary  compass  in  the  crooked-up  palm 
of  his  hand.  The  needle  pointed  at  me,  as  I  hap- 
pened to  be  standing  north  of  it. 

The  wheel  spun.  Suddenly  the  needle  swung 
around  to  a  point  between  the  north  and  south 
poles,  quivered  a  moment,  and  came  to  rest  in 
that  position.  Then  it  swung  back  to  the  north. 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  377 

It  was  some  seconds  before  I  realised  the  sig- 
nificance of  it.  It  had  pointed  at  the  table — and 
DeLong  had  lost  again.  There  was  some  elec- 
tric attachment  at  work. 

Kennedy  and  I  exchanged  glances,  and  he 
shoved  the  compass  into  my  hand  quickly.  "You 
watch  it,  Walter,  while  I  play,"  he  whispered. 

Carefully  concealing  it,  as  he  had  done,  yet 
holding  it  as  close  to  the  table  as  I  dared  I  tried 
to  follow  two  things  at  once  without  betraying 
myself.  As  near  as  I  could  make  out,  something 
happened  at  every  play.  I  would  not  go  so  far  as 
to  assert  that  whenever  the  larger  stakes  were  on 
a  certain  number  the  needle  pointed  to  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  wheel,  for  it  was  impossible  to 
be  at  all  accurate  about  it.  Once  I  noticed  the 
needle  did  not  move  at  all,  and  he  won.  But  on 
the  next  play  he  staked  what  I  knew  must  be  the 
remainder  of  his  winnings  on  what  seemed  a  very 
good  chance.  Even  before  the  wheel  was  re- 
volved and  the  ball  set  rolling,  the  needle  swung 
about,  and  when  the  platinum  ball  came  to  rest 
Kennedy  rose  from  the  table,  a  loser. 

"By  George  though,"  exclaimed  DeLong, 
grasping  his  hand.  "I  take  it  all  back.  You  are 
a  good  loser,  sir.  I  wish  I  could  take  it  as  well 
as  you  do.  But  then,  I'm  in  too  deeply.  There 
are  too  many  'markers'  with  the  house  up  against 
me.'1 

Senator  Danfield  had  just  come  in  to  see  how 


378  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

things  were  going.  He  was  a  sleek,  fat  man,  and 
it  was  amazing  to  see  with  what  deference  his 
victims  treated  him.  He  affected  not  to  have 
heard  what  DeLong  said,  but  I  could  imagine 
what  he  was  thinking,  for  I  had  heard  that  he 
had  scant  sympathy  with  anyone  after  he  "went 
broke" — another  evidence  of  the  camaraderie 
and  good-fellowship  that  surrounded  the  game. 

Kennedy's  next  remark  surprised  me.  "Oh, 
your  luck  will  change,  D.  L., ' ' — everyone  referred 
to  him  as  "D.  L.,"  for  gambling-houses  have  an 
aversion  for  real  names  and  greatly  prefer  in- 
itials— "your  luck  will  change  presently.  Keep 
right  on  with  your  system.  It's  the  best  you  can 
do  to-night,  short  of  quitting." 

"I'll  never  quit,"  replied  the  young  man  under 
his  breath. 

Meanwhile  Kennedy  and  I  paused  on  the  way. 
out  to  compare  notes.  My  report  of  the  behav- 
iour of  the  compass  only  confirmed  him  in  his 
opinion. 

As  we  turned  to  the  stairs  we  took  in  a  full 
view  of  the  room.  A  faro-layout  was  purchasing 
Senator  Danfield  a  new  touring-car  every  hour 
at  the  expense  of  the  players.  Another  group 
was  gathered  about  the  hazard-board,  deriving 
evident  excitement,  though  I  am  sure  none  could 
have  given  an  intelligent  account  of  the  chances 
they  were  taking.  Two  roulette-tables  were  now 
going  full  blast,  the  larger  crowd  still  about  De- 


THE   STEEL  DOOE  379 

Long's.  Snatches  of  conversation  came  to  us 
now  and  then,  and  I  caught  one  sentence,  "  De- 
Long's  in  for  over  a  hundred  thousand  now  on 
the  week's  play,  I  understand;  poor  boy — that 
about  cleans  him  up." 

"The  tragedy  of  it,  Craig,"  I  whispered,  but 
he  did  not  hear. 

With  his  hat  tilted  at  a  rakish  angle  and  his 
opera-coat  over  his  arm  he  sauntered  over  for  a 
last  look. 

"Any  luck  yet?"  he  asked  carelessly. 

"The  devil — no,"  returned  the  boy. 

"Do  you  know  what  my  advice  to  you  is,  the 
advice  of  a  man  who  has  seen  high  play  every- 
where from  Monte  Carlo  to  Shanghai?" 

"What?" 

"Play  until  your  luck  changes  if  it  takes  until 
to-morrow. ' ' 

A  supercilious  smile  crossed  Senator  Dan- 
field's  fat  face. 

"I  intend  to,"  and  the  haggard  young  face 
turned  again  to  the  table  and  forgot  us. 

"For  Heaven's  sake,  Kennedy,"  I  gasped  as 
we  went  down  the  stairway,  "what  do  you  mean 
by  giving  him  such  advice — you?" 

"Not  so  loud,  Walter.  He'd  have  done  it  any- 
how, I  suppose,  but  I  want  him  to  keep  at  it. 
This  night  means  life  or  death  to  Percival  De- 
Long  and  his  mother,  too.  Come  on,  let's  get  out 
of  this." 


380  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

"We  passed  the  formidable  steel  door  and 
gained  the  street,  jostled  by  the  late-comers  who 
had  left  the  after-theatre  restaurants  for  a  few 
moments  of  play  at  the  famous  club  that  so  long 
had  defied  the  police. 

Almost  gaily  Kennedy  swung  along  toward 
Broadway.  At  the  corner  he  hesitated,  glanced 
up  and  down,  caught  sight  of  the  furniture-van 
in  the  middle  of  the  next  block.  The  driver  was 
tugging  at  the  harness  of  the  horses,  apparently 
fixing  it.  We  walked  along  and  stopped  beside 
it. 

"Drive  around  in  front  of  the  Vesper  Club 
slowly,"  said  Kennedy  as  the  driver  at  last  looked 
up. 

The  van  lumbered  ahead,  and  we  followed  it 
casually.  Around  the  corner  it  turned.  We 
turned  also.  My  heart  was  going  like  a  sledge- 
hammer as  the  critical  moment  approached.  My 
head  was  in  a  whirl.  What  would  that  gay 
throng  back  of  those  darkened  windows  down  the 
street  think  if  they  knew  what  was  being  pre- 
pared for  them? 

On,  like  the  Trojan  horse,  the  van  lumbered. 
A  man  went  into  the  Vesper  Club,  and  I  saw  the 
negro  at  the  door  eye  the  oncoming  van  suspi- 
ciously. The  door  banged  shut. 

The  next  thing  I  knew,  Kennedy  had  ripped 
off  his  disguise,  had  flung  himself  up  behind  the 
van,  and  had  swung  the  doors  open.  A  dozen 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  381 

men  with  axes  and  sledge-hammers  swarmed  out 
and  up  the  steps  of  the  club. 

"Call  the  reserves,  0 'Connor, "  cried  Kennedy. 
" Watch  the  roof  and  the  back  yard." 

The  driver  of  the  van  hastened  to  send  in  the 
call. 

The  sharp  raps  of  the  hammers  and  the  axes 
sounded  on  the  thick  brass-bound  oak  of  the  out- 
side door  in  quick  succession.  There  was  a 
scurry  of  feet  inside,  and  we  could  hear  a  grating 
noise  and  a  terrific  jar  as  the  inner,  steel  door 
shut. 

"A  raid!  'A  raid  on  the  Vesper  Club!" 
shouted  a  belated  passer-by.  The  crowd  swarmed 
around  from  Broadway,  as  if  it  were  noon  in- 
stead of  midnight. 

Banging  and  ripping  and  tearing,  the  outer 
door  was  slowly  forced.  As  it  crashed  in,  the 
quick  gongs  of  several  police  patrols  sounded. 
The  reserves  had  been  called  out  at  the  proper 
moment,  too  late  for  them  to  "tip  off"  the  club 
that  there  was  going  to  be  a  raid,  as  frequently] 
occurs. 

Disregarding  the  melee  behind  me,  I  leaped 
through  the  wreckage  with  the  other  raiders. 
The  steel  door  barred  all  further  progress  with 
its  cold  blue  impassibility.  How  were  we  to  sur- 
mount this  last  and  most  formidable  barrier? 

I  turned  in  time  to  see  Kennedy  and  O'Connor 
hurrying  up  the  steps  with  a  huge  tank  studded 


382  THE   SILENT  BULLET 

with  bolts  like  a  boiler,  while  two  other  men 
ried  a  second  tank. 

11  There,"  ordered  Craig,  "set  the  oxygen 
there,"  as  he  placed  his  own  tank  on  the  opposite 
side. 

Out  of  the  tanks  stout  tubes  led,  with  stop- 
cocks and  gages  at  the  top.  From  a  case  under 
his  arm  Kennedy  produced  a  curious  arrange- 
ment like  a  huge  hook,  with  a  curved  neck  and  a 
sharp  beak.  Eeally  it  consisted  of  two  metal 
tubes  which  ran  into  a  sort  of  cylinder,  or  mixing 
chamber,  above  the  nozzle,  while  parallel  to  them 
ran  a  third  separate  tube  with  a  second  nozzle  of 
its  own.  Quickly  he  joined  the  ends  of  the  tubes 
from  the  tanks  to  the  metal  hook,  the  oxygen- 
tank  being  joined  to  two  of  the  tubes  of  the  hook, 
and  the  second  tank  being  joined  to  the  other. 
With  a  match  he  touched  the  nozzle  gingerly. 
Instantly  a  hissing,  spitting  noise  followed,  and 
an  intense  blinding  needle  of  flame. 

"Now  for  the  oxy-acetylene  blowpipe,' '  cried 
Kennedy  as  he  advanced  toward  the  steel  door. 
"We'll  make  short  work  of  this." 

Almost  as  he  said  it,  the  steel  beneath  the  blow- 
pipe became  incandescent. 

Just  to  test  it,  he  cut  off  the  head  of  a  three- 
quarter-inch  steel  rivet — taking  about  a  quarter 
of  a  minute  to  do  it.  It  was  evident,  though,  that 
that  would  not  weaken  the  door  appreciably,  even 
if  the  rivets  were  all  driven  through.  Still  they. 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  383 

gave  a  starting-point  for  the  flame  of  the  high- 
pressure  acetylene  torch. 

It  was  a  brilliant  sight.  The  terrific  heat  from 
the  first  nozzle  caused  the  metal  to  glow  under 
the  torch  as  if  in  an  open-hearth  furnace.  From 
the  second  nozzle  issued  a  stream  of  oxygen 
under  which  the  hot  metal  of  the  door  was  com- 
pletely consumed.  The  force  of  the  blast  as  the 
compressed  oxygen  and  acetylene  were  expelled 
carried  a  fine  spray  of  the  disintegrated  metal 
visibly  before  it.  And  yet  it  was  not  a  big  hole 
that  it  made — scarcely  an  eighth  of  an  inch  wide, 
but  clear  and  sharp  as  if  a  buzz-saw  were  eating 
its  way  through  a  three-inch  plank  of  white  pine. 

With  tense  muscles  Kennedy  held  this  terrific 
engine  of  destruction  and  moved  it  as  easily  as 
if  it  had  been  a  mere  pencil  of  light.  He  was 
easily  the  calmest  of  us  all  as  we  crowded  about 
him  at  a  respectful  distance. 

"Acetylene,  as  you  may  know,"  he  hastily  ex- 
plained, never  pausing  for  a  moment  in  his  work, 
"is  composed  of  carbon  and  hydrogen.  As  it 
burns  at  the  end  of  the  nozzle  it  is  broken  into 
carbon  and  hydrogen — the  carbon  gives  the  high 
temperature,  and  the  hydrogen  forms  a  cone  that 
protects  the  end  of  the  blowpipe  from  being  it- 
self burnt  up." 

"But  isn't  it  dangerous?"  I  asked,  amazed  at 
the  skill  with  which  he  handled  the  blowpipe. 

"Not  particularly — when  you  know  how  to  do 


384  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

it.  In  that  tank  is  a  porous  asbestos  packing  sat- 
urated with  acetone,  under  pressure.  Thus  I  can 
carry  acetylene  safely,  for  it  is  dissolved,  and  the 
possibility  of  explosion  is  minimised.  This  mix- 
ing chamber  by  which  I  am  holding  the  torch, 
where  the  oxygen  and  acetylene  mix,  is  also  de- 
signed in  such  a  way  as  to  prevent  a  flash-back. 
The  best  thing  about  this  style  of  blowpipe  is  the 
ease  with  which  it  can  be  transported  and  the 
curious  uses — like  the  present — to  which  it  can 
be  put." 

He  paused  a  moment  to  test  the  door.  All  was 
silence  on  the  other  side.  The  door  itself  was  as 
firm  as  ever. 

"Huh!"  exclaimed  one  of  the  detectives  be- 
hind me,  "these  new-fangled  things  ain't  all 
they're  cracked  up  to  be.  Now  if  I  was  runnin* 
this  show,  I'd  dynamite  that  door  to  kingdom 
come." 

"And  wreck  the  house  and  kill  a  few  people," 
I  returned,  hotly  resenting  the  criticism  of  Ken- 
nedy. Kennedy  affected  not  to  hear. 

"When  I  shut  off  the  oxygen  in  this  second 
jet,"  he  resumed  as  if  nothing  had  been  said, 
"you  see  the  torch  merely  heats  the  steel.  I 
can  get  a  heat  of  approximately  sixty-three  hun- 
dred degrees  Fahrenheit,  and  the  flame  will  ex- 
ert a  pressure  of  fifty  pounds  to  the  square  inch." 
,  "Wonderful!"  exclaimed  O'Connor,  who  had 
not  heard  the  remark  of  his  subordinate  and  was 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  385 

watching  with  undisguised  admiration.  "Ken- 
nedy, how  did  you  ever  think  of  such  a  thing?" 

"Why,  it's  used  for  welding,  you  know,"  an- 
swered Craig  as  he  continued  to  work  calmly  in 
the  growing  excitement.  "I  first  saw  it  in  actual 
use  in  mending  a  cracked  cylinder  in  an  automo- 
bile. The  cylinder  was  repaired  without  being 
taken  out  at  all.  I've  seen  it  weld  new  teeth  and 
build  up  old  worn  teeth  on  gearing,  as  good  as 
new." 

He  paused  to  let  us  see  the  terrifically  heated 
metal  under  the  flame. 

"You  remember  when  we  were  talking  on  the 
drive  about  the  raid,  O'Connor?  A  car-load  of 
scrap-iron  went  by  on  the  railroad  below  us. 
They  use  this  blowpipe  to  cut  it  up,  frequently. 
That's  what  gave  me  the  idea.  See.  I  turn  on 
the  oxygen  now  in  this  second  nozzle.  The  blow- 
pipe is  no  longer  an  instrument  for  joining  met- 
als together,  but  for  cutting  them  asunder.  The 
steel  burns  just  as  you,  perhaps,  have  seen  a 
watch-spring  burn  in  a  jar  of  oxygen.  Steel, 
hard  or  soft,  tempered,  annealed,  chrome,  or 
Harveyised,  it  all  burns  just  as  fast  and  just  as 
easily.  And  it's  cheap  too.  This  raid  may  cost 
a  couple  of  dollars,  as  far  as  the  blowpipe  is  con- 
cerned— quite  a  difference  from  the  thousands  of 
dollars'  loss  that  would  follow  an  attempt  to  blow 
the  door  in." 

The  last  remark  was  directed  quietly  at  the 


386  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

doubting  detective.  He  had  nothing  to  say.  We 
stood  in  awe-struck  amazement  as  the  torch 
slowly,  inexorably,  traced  a  thin  line  along  the 
edge  of  the  door. 

Minute  after  minute  sped  by,  as  the  line  burned 
by  the  blowpipe  cut  straight  from  top  to  bottom. 
It  seemed  hours  to  me.  Was  Kennedy  going  to 
slit  the  whole  door  and  let  it  fall  in  with  a  crash? 

No,  I  could  see  that  even  in  his  cursory  exami- 
nation of  the  door  he  had  gained  a  pretty  good 
knowledge  of  the  location  of  the  bolts  imbedded 
in  the  steel.  One  after  another  he  was  cutting 
clear  through  and  severing  them,  as  if  with  a 
superhuman  knife. 

What  was  going  on  on  the  other  side  of  the 
door,  I  wondered.  I  could  scarcely  imagine  the 
consternation  of  the  gamblers  caught  in  their 
own  trap. 

With  a  quick  motion  Kennedy  turned  off  the 
acetylene  and  oxygen.  The  last  bolt  had  been 
severed.  A  gentle  push  of  the  hand,  and  he 
swung  the  once  impregnable  door  on  its  deli- 
cately poised  hinges  as  easily  as  if  he  had  merely 
said,  "Open  Sesame."  The  robbers'  cave 
yawned  before  us. 

We  made  a  rush  up  the  stairs.  Kennedy  was 
first,  O'Connor  next,  and  myself  scarcely  a  step 
behind,  with  the  rest  of  O'Connor's  men  at  our 
heels. 

I  think  we  were  all  prepared  for  some  sort  of 


THE   STEEL   DOOR  387 

gun-play,  for  the  crooks  were  desperate  charac- 
ters, and.  I  myself  was  surprised  to  encounter 
nothing  but  physical  force,  which  was  quickly 
overcome. 

In  the  now  disordered  richness  of  the  rooms, 
waving  his  "John  Doe"  warrants  in  one  hand 
and  his  pistol  in  the  other,  O'Connor  shouted: 
"You're  all  under  arrest,  gentlemen.  If  you  re- 
sist further  it  will  go  hard  with  you. ' ' 

Crowded  now  in  one  end  of  the  room  in  speech- 
less amazement  was  the  late  gay  party  of  gam- 
blers, including  Senator  Danfield  himself.  They 
had  reckoned  on  toying  with  any  chance  but  this. 
The  pale  white  face  of  DeLong  among  them  was 
like  a  spectre,  as  he  stood  staring  blankly  about 
and  still  insanely  twisting  the  roulette  wheel  be- 
fore him. 

Kennedy  advanced  toward  the  table  with  an  ax 
which  he  had  seized  from  one  of  our  men.  A  well- 
directed  blow  shattered  the  mechanism  of  the  deli- 
cate wheel. 

" DeLong, "  he  sai'd,  "I'm  not  going  to  talk  to 
you  like  your  old  professor  at  the  university,  nor 
like  your  recent  friend,  the  Frenchman  with  a  sys- 
tem. This  is  what  you  have  been  up  against,  my, 
boy.  Look." 

His  forefinger  indicated  an  ingenious,  but  now 
tangled  and  twisted,  series  of  minute  wires  and 
electro-magnets  in  the  broken  wheel  before  us. 
Delicate  brushes  led  the  current  into  the  wheel. 


388  THE   SILENT   BULLET 

With  another  blow  of  his  axe,  Craig  disclosed 
wires  running  down  through  the  leg  of  the  table 
to  the  floor  and  under  the  carpet  to  buttons  oper- 
ated by  the  man  who  ran  the  game. 

"Wh-what  does  it  mean?"  asked  DeLong 
blankly. 

"It  means  that  you  had  little  enough  chance  to 
win  at  a  straight  game  of  roulette.  But  the 
wheel  is  very  rarely  straight,  even  with  all  the 
Qdds  in  favour  of  the  bank,  as  they  are.  This 
game  was  electrically  controlled.  Others  are  me- 
chanically controlled  by  what  is  sometimes  called 
the  'mule's  ear,'  and  other  devices.  You  can't 
win.  These  wires  and  magnets  can  be  made 
to  attract  the  little  ball  into  any  pocket  the 
operator  desires.  Each  one  of  those  pockets  con- 
tains a  little  electro-magnet.  One  set  of  magnets 
in  the  red  pockets  is  connected  with  one  button 
under  the  carpet  and  a  battery.  The  other  set 
in  the  black  pockets  is  connected  with  another 
button  and  the  battery.  This  ball  is  not  really 
of  platinum.  Platinum  is  non-magnetic.  It  is  sim- 
ply a  soft  iron  hollow  ball,  plated  with  platinum. 
Whichever  set  of  electro-magnets  is  energised  at- 
tracts the  ball  and  by  this  simple  method  it  is  in 
the  power  of  the  operator  to  let  the  ball  go  to  red 
or  black  as  he  may  wish.  Other  similar  arrange- 
ments control  the  odd  or  even,  and  other  com- 
binations from  other  push  buttons.  A  special  ar- 
rangement took  care  of  that  '17'  freak.  There 


THE   STEEL  DOOR  389 

isn't  an  honest  gambling-machine  in  tHe  whole 
place — I  might  almost  say  the  whole  city.  The 
whole  thing  is  crooked  from  start  to  finish— the 
men,  the  machines,  the — " 

"That  machine  could  be  made  to  beat  me  by 
turning  up  a  run  of  '  17 '  any  number  of  times,  or 
red  or  black,  or  odd  or  even,  over  '18'  or  under 
'18,'  or  anything?" 

"Anything,  DeLong." 

"And  I  never  had  a  chance,"  he  repeated,  med- 
itatively fingering  the  wires.  "They  broke  me 
to-night.  Danfield" — DeLong  turned,  looking 
dazedly  about  in  the  crowd  for  his  former  friend, 
then  his  hand  shot  into  his  pocket,  and  a  little 
ivory-handled  pistol  flashed  out — "Danfield,  your 
blood  is  on  your  own  head.  You  have  ruined  me. ' ' 

Kennedy  must  have  been  expecting  something 
of  the  sort,  for  he  seized  the  arm  of  the  young 
man,  weakened  by  dissipation,  and  turned  the 
pistol  upward  as  if  it  had  been  in  the  grasp  of  a 
mere  child. 

A  blinding  flash  followed  in  the  farthest  corner 
of  the  room  and  a  huge  puff  of  smoke.  Before  I 
could  collect  my  wits  another  followed  in  the  op- 
posite corner.  The  room  was  filled  with  a  dense 
smoke. 

Two  men  were  scuffling  at  my  feet.  One  was 
Kennedy.  As  I  dropped  down  quickly  to  help 
him  I  saw  that  the  other  was  Danfield,  his  face 
purple  with  the  violence  of  the  struggle. 


390  THE    SILENT   BULLET 

"Don't  be  alarmed,  gentlemen,"  I  heard  O'Con- 
nor shont,  "the  explosions  were  only  the  flash- 
lights of  the  official  police  photographers.  We 
now  have  the  evidence  complete.  Gentlemen,  you 
will  now  go  down  quietly  to  the  patrol-wagons 
below,  two  by  two.  If  you  have  anything  to  say, 
say  it  to  the  magistrate  of  the  night  court." 

"Hold  his  arms,  Walter,"  panted  Kennedy. 

I  did.  With  a  dexterity  that  would  have  done 
credit  to  a  pickpocket,  Kennedy  reached  into  Dan- 
field's  pocket  and  pulled  out  some  papers. 

Before  the  smoke  had  cleared  and  order  had 
been  restored,  Craig  exclaimed:  "Let  him  up, 
Walter.  Here,  DeLong,  here  are  the  I.  0.  U.'s 
against  you.  Tear  them  up — they  are  not  even 
a  debt  of  honour." 


THE  END 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

305  De  Neve  Drive  -  Parking  Lot  17  •  Box  951388 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095-1388 
Return  this  material  to  the  library  from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


